The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay Part 3

Once in England, they could listen to what the Company had to offer: meanwhile they were suffering no harm. The Frenchmen sullenly put back their swords. The boat reached Portsmouth in the last week of October.

Radisson took horse and rode furiously for London.

If the adventurers had been exultant over his return from France, they were doubly jubilant at his victorious return from the Bay. He was publicly thanked, presented with a hundred guineas, and became the lion of the hour. The Governing Committee on November 14, 1684, three weeks after Radisson's return, voted that he had 'done extraordinary service to the great liking and satisfaction of the Company...the committee are resolved to bestow some mark of respect to the son of Mr Groseilliers and order 20s. a week paid him beginning October 30.' A present of seven musquash skins was now given Mr Young for having induced Radisson to resume his services.

Radisson was requested to make terms with the young Frenchman, but this was not such an easy matter. Some one suggested that Jean Chouart should follow the example of his uncle and marry an English wife. Jean shrugged his shoulders. In a letter to his mother at Three Rivers he wrote: 'I am offered proposals of marriage to which I will not listen. I would leave, but they hold back my pay, and orders have been given to arrest me in case I try. Cause it to be well known that I never intended to follow the English. I have been forced to this by my uncle's subterfuge.

a.s.sure M. Du Lhut of my humble services. I will have the honour of seeing him as soon as I can. Tell the same to M. Pere and all our good friends.' To M. Comporte he writes: 'I will be at the place you desire me to go, or perish.' As M. Du Lhut had been dispatched by the Company of the North with the knowledge of the governor of Quebec to intercept Indians going down to the English on Hudson Bay, and M. Pere and M.

Comporte were suave diplomats and spies in his service, it may be guessed that the French pa.s.sed secret messages into the hands of young Jean Chouart in London, and that he pa.s.sed messages back to them. At all events, from being doggedly resistant to all overtures, he suddenly became complaisant in March of 1685, and took out papers of 'deninization,' or naturalization, in preference to the oath of fidelity, and engaged with the English Company at 100 a year. He was given another 100 to fit him out, and his four comrades were engaged at from 45 to 80 a year. How could the gentlemen of the Company guess that young Jean was betraying them to the Company of the North in Canada, where a mine was being laid to blow up their prosperity?

The Hudson's Bay Company declared dividends of fifty per cent, and chartered seven vessels for the season of 1685--some from a goldsmith, Sir Stephen Evance; and bespoke my Lord Churchill as next governor in place of James, Duke of York, who had become King James II.

CHAPTER VI

THE GREAT OVERLAND RAID

The Company now had permanent forts at Rupert, Albany, and Moose rivers on James Bay, and at the mouth of the Hayes river on the west coast. The very year that Churchill was appointed governor and took his place at the board of the Governing Committee, a small sloop had sailed as far north as Churchill, or the River of the Strangers, to reconnoitre and fix a site for a post. The fleet of trading vessels had increased even faster than the forts. Seven ships--four frigates and three sloops--were dispatched for the Bay in 1685. Radisson, young Jean, and the four Frenchmen went on the _Happy Return_ with Captain Bond bound for Nelson.

Richard Lucas commanded the _Owner's Good Will_. Captain Outlaw, with Mike Gr.i.m.m.i.n.gton as mate, took the big ship _Success_, destined for Albany. Captain Hume, with Smithsend for mate, took his cargo boat, the _Merchant Perpetuana_. The Company did not own any of these vessels.

They were chartered from Sir Stephen Evance and others, for sums running from 400 to 600 for the voyage, with 100 extra for the impress money.

The large vessels carried crews of twenty men; the smaller, of twelve; and each craft boasted at least six great guns. In March, after violent debate over old Bridgar's case, the Committee reinstated him at 100 a year as governor at Rupert. Phipps went as governor to Port Nelson. One Nixon was already stationed at Moose. Bluff old Henry Sargeant, as true a Viking as ever rode the north seas, had been at Albany for a year with his family--the first white family known to have resided on the Bay.

Radisson had been reappointed superintendent of trade over the entire Bay; and he recommended for this year 20,500 extra flints, 500 extra ice-chisels for trapping beaver above the waterfalls, and several thousand extra yards of tobacco--thereby showing the judgment of an experienced trader. This spring the curious oaths of secrecy, already mentioned, were administered to all servants. It may be inferred that the _Happy Return_ and the _Perpetuana_ were the heaviest laden, for they fell behind the rest of the fleet on the way out, and were embayed, along with Outlaw's _Success_, in the icefields off Digges Island in July. It was the realm of almost continuous light in summer; but there must have been fogs or thick weather, for candles were lighted in the binnacles and cabins, and the gloom outside was so heavy that it was impossible to see ten feet away from the decks in the woolly night mist.

Meanwhile the governor at Albany, Henry Sargeant, awaited the coming of the yearly ships. It may be guessed that he waited chuckling. He and Nixon, who seem to have been the only governors resident on the Bay that summer, must have felt great satisfaction. They had out-tricked the French interlopers. One La Martiniere of the Company of the North had sailed into the Bay with two ships laden with cargo from Quebec for the fur trade; and the two Hudson's Bay traders had manipulated matters so craftily that not an Indian could the French find. Not a pelt did La Martiniere obtain. The French captain then inquired very particularly for his compatriot--M. Radisson. M. Radisson was safe in England. One can see old Sargeant's eyes twinkle beneath his s.h.a.ggy brows. La Martiniere swears softly; a price is on M. Radisson's head. The French king had sent orders to M. de Denonville, the governor of New France, to arrest Radisson and 'to pay fifty pistoles' to anyone who seized him.

Has His Excellency, M. Sargeant, seen one Jean Pere, or one M. Comporte?

No, M. Sargeant has seen neither 'Parry'--as his report has it--nor 'a Comporte.'

La Martiniere sailed away, and old Sargeant sent his sentinel to the crow's nest--a sort of loft or lighthouse built on a high hill behind the fort--to hoist the signals for incoming boats and to run up the flag. He had dispatched Sandford or 'Red Cap,' one of his men, a little way up the Albany to bring him word of the coming of the Indian canoes; but this was not Sandford coming back, and these were not Indian canoes coming down the Albany river from the Up-Country. This was the long slow dip of white voyageurs, not the quick choppy stroke of the Indian; and before Sargeant could rub the amazement out of his eyes, three white men, with a blanket for sail, came swirling down the current, beached their canoe, and, doffing caps in a debonair manner, presented themselves before the Hudson's Bay man dourly sitting on a cannon in the gateway. The nonchalant gentleman who introduced the others was Jean Pere, dressed as a wood-runner, voyaging and hunting in this back-of-beyond for pleasure. A long way to come for pleasure, thought Sargeant--all the leagues and leagues from French camps on Lake Superior. But England and France were at peace. The gentlemen bore pa.s.sports. They were welcomed to a fort breakfast and pa.s.sed pretty compliments to Madame Sargeant, and asked blandly after M. Radisson's health, and had the honour to express their most affectionate regard for friend Jean Chouart. Now where might Jean Chouart be? Sargeant did not satisfy their curiosity, nor did he urge them to stay overnight. They sailed gaily on down-stream to hunt in the cedar swamps south of Albany.

That night while they slept the tide carried off their canoe. Back they had to come to the fort. But meanwhile some one else had arrived there.

With a fluttering of the ensign above the mainmast and a clatter as the big sails came flopping down, Captain Outlaw had come to anchor on the _Success_; and the tale that he told--one can see the anger mount to old Sargeant's eyes and the fear to Jean Pere's--was that the _Merchant Perpetuana_, off Digges Island, had been boarded and scuttled in the midnight gloom of July 27 by two French ships. Hume and Smithsend had been overpowered, fettered, and carried off prisoners to Quebec. Mike Gr.i.m.m.i.n.gton too, who seems to have been on Hume's ship, was a prisoner.

Fourteen of the crew had been bayoneted to death and thrown overboard.

Outlaw did not know the later details of the raid--how Hume was to be sent home to France for ransom, and Mike Gr.i.m.m.i.n.gton was to be tortured to betray the secret signals of the Bay, and Smithsend and the other English seamen to be sold into slavery in Martinique. Ultimately, all three were ransomed or escaped back to England; but they heard strange threats of raid and overland foray as they lay imprisoned beneath the Chateau St Louis in Quebec. Fortunately Radisson and the five Frenchmen, being on board the _Happy Return_, had succeeded in escaping from the ice jam and were safe in Nelson.

What Jean Pere remarked on hearing this recital is not known--possibly something not very complimentary about the plans of the French raiders going awry; but the next thing is that Mr Jan Parry--as Sargeant persists in describing him--finds himself in 'the b.u.t.ter vat' or prison of Albany with fetters on his feet and handcuffs on his wrists. On October 29 he is sent prisoner to England on the home-bound ships of Bond and Lucas. His two companion spies are marooned for the winter on Charlton Island. As well try, however, to maroon a bird on the wing as a French wood-runner. The men fished and snared game so diligently that by September they had full store of provisions for escape. Then they made themselves a raft or canoe and crossed to the mainland. By Christmas they had reached the French camps of Michilimackinac. In another month they were in Quebec with wild tales of Pere, held prisoner in the dungeons of Albany. France and England were at peace; but the Chevalier de Troyes, a French army officer, and the brothers Le Moyne, dare-devil young adventurers of New France, asked permission of the governor of Quebec to lead a band of wood-runners overland to rescue Pere on the Bay, fire the English forts, and ma.s.sacre the English. Rumours of these raids Smithsend heard in his dungeon below Chateau St Louis; and he contrived to send a secret letter to England, warning the Company.

In England the adventurers had lodged 'Parry' in jail on a charge of having 'd.a.m.nified the Company.' Smithsend's letter of warning had come; but how could the Company reach their forts before the ice cleared?

Meanwhile they hired twenty extra men for each fort. They presented Radisson with a hogshead of claret. At the same time they had him and his wife, 'dwelling at the end of Seething Lane on Tower Hill,' sign a bond for 2000 by way of ensuring fidelity. 'Ye two journals of Mr Radisson's last expedition to ye Bay' were delivered into the hands of the Company, where they have rested to this day.

The ransom demanded for Hume was paid by the Company at secret sessions of the Governing Committee, and the captain came post-haste from France with word of La Martiniere's raid. My Lord Churchill being England's champion against 'those varmint' the French, 'My Lord Churchill was presented with a catt skin counter pane for his bedd' and was asked to bespeak the favour of the king that France should make rest.i.tution. My Lord Churchill brought back word that the king said: 'Gentlemen, I understand your business! On my honour, I a.s.sure you I will take particular care on it to see that you are righted.' In all, eighty-nine men were on the Bay at this time. It proved not easy to charter ships that year. Sir Stephen Evance advanced his price on the _Happy Return_ from 400 to 750. Knight, of whom we shall hear anon, and Red Cap Sandford, of whom the minutes do not tell enough to inform us whether the name refers to his hair or his hat, urged the Governing Committee to send at least eighteen more men to Albany, twelve more to Moose, six more to Rupert, and to open a trading post at Severn between Nelson and Albany. They advised against attempting to go up the rivers while French interlopers were active. Radisson bought nine hundred muskets for Nelson, and ordered two great guns to be mounted on the walls. When Smithsend arrived from imprisonment in Quebec, war fever against the French rose to white-heat.

But, while all this preparation was in course at home, sixty-six swarthy Indians and thirty-three French wood-runners, led by the Chevalier de Troyes, the Le Moyne brothers, and La Chesnaye, the fur trader, were threading the deeply-forested, wild hinterland between Quebec and Hudson Bay. On June 18, 1686, Moose Fort had shut all its gates; but the sleepy sentry, lying in his blanket across the entrance, had not troubled to load the cannon. He slept heavily outside the high palisade made of pickets eighteen feet long, secure in the thought that twelve soldiers lay in one of the corner bastions and that three thousand pounds of powder were stored in another. With all lights out and seemingly in absolute security, the chief factor's store and house, built of whitewashed stone, stood in the centre of the inner courtyard.

Two white men dressed as Indians--the young Le Moyne brothers, not yet twenty-six years of age--slipped noiselessly from the woods behind the fort, careful not to crunch their moccasins on dead branches, took a look at the sleeping sentry and the plugged mouths of the unloaded cannon, and as noiselessly slipped back to their comrades in hiding.

Each man was armed with musket, sword, dagger, and pistol. He carried no haversack, but a single blanket rolled on his back with dried meat and biscuit enclosed. The raiders slipped off their blankets and coats, and knelt and prayed for blessing on their raid.

The next time the Le Moynes came back to the sentinel sleeping heavily at the fort gate, one quick, sure sabre-stroke cleft the sluggard's head to the collar-bone. A moment later the whole hundred raiders were sweeping over the walls. A gunner sprang up with a shout from his sleep. A single blow on the head, and one of the Le Moynes had put the fellow to sleep for ever. In less than five minutes the French were masters of Moose Fort at a cost of only two lives, with booty of twelve cannon and three thousand pounds of powder and with a dozen prisoners.

While the old Chevalier de Troyes paused to rig up a sailing sloop for the voyage across the bottom of James Bay to the Rupert river, Pierre Le Moyne--known in history as d'Iberville--with eight men, set out in canoes on June 27 for the Hudson's Bay fort on the south-east corner of the inland sea. Crossing the first gulf or Hannah Bay, he portaged with his men across the swampy flats into Rupert Bay, thus saving a day's detour, and came on poor old Bridgar's sloop near the fort at Rupert, sails reefed, anchor out, rocking gently to the night tide. D'Iberville was up the hull and over the deck with the quiet stealth and quickness of a cat. One sword-blow severed the sleeping sentinel's head from his body. Then, with a stamp of his moccasined feet and a ramp of the b.u.t.t of his musket, d'Iberville awakened the sleeping crew below decks. By way of putting the fear of G.o.d and of France into English hearts, he sabred the first three sailors who came floundering up the hatches. Poor old Bridgar came up in his nightshirt, hardly awake, both hands up in surrender--his second surrender in four years. To wake up to b.l.o.o.d.y decks, with the heads of dead men rolling to the scuppers, was enough to excuse any man's surrender.

The noise on the ship had forewarned the fort, and the French had to gain entrance thereto by ladders. With these they ascended to the roofs of the houses and hurled down bombs--hand-grenades--through the chimneys, 'with,' says the historian of the occasion, 'an effect most admirable.' Most admirable, indeed! for an Englishwoman, hiding in a room closet, fell screaming with a broken hip. The fort surrendered, and the French were masters of Rupert with thirty prisoners and a ship to the good. What all this had to do with the rescue of Jean Pere would puzzle any one but a raiding fur trader.

With prisoners, ship, cannon, and ammunition, but with few provisions for food, the French now set sail westward across the Bay for Albany, La Chesnaye no doubt bearing in mind that a large quant.i.ty of beaver stored there would compensate him for his losses at Nelson two years before when the furs collected by Jean Chouart on behalf of the Company of the North had been seized by the English. The wind proved perverse.

Icefloes, driving towards the south end of the Bay, delayed the sloops.

Again Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville could not constrain patience to await the favour of wind and weather. With crews of voyageurs he pushed off from the ship in two canoes. Fog fell. The ice proved brashy, soft to each step, and the men slithered through the water up to the armpits as they carried the canoes. D'Iberville could keep his men together only by firing guns through the fog and holding hands in a chain as the two crews portaged across the soft ice.

By August 1 the French voyageurs were in camp before Albany, and a few days later de Troyes arrived with the prisoners and the big sloop.

Before Albany, Captain Outlaw's ship, the _Success_, stood anch.o.r.ed; but the ship seemed deserted, and the fort was fast sealed, like an oyster in a sh.e.l.l. Indians had evidently carried warning of the raid to Sargeant, and Captain Outlaw had withdrawn his crew inside the fort. The Le Moynes, acting as scouts, soon discovered that Albany boasted forty-three guns. If Jean Pere were prisoner here in durance vile, his rescue would be a harder matter than the capture of Moose or Rupert. If the French had but known it, bedlam reigned inside the fort. While the English had guns, they had very little ammunition. Gunners threw down their fuses and refused to stand up behind the cannon till old Sargeant drove them back with his sword hilt. Men on the walls threw down muskets and declared that while they had signed to serve, they had not signed to fight, 'and if any of us lost a leg, the Company could not make it good.' The Chevalier de Troyes, with banner flying and fifes shrilling, marched forward, and under flag of truce pompously demanded, in the name of the Most Christian Monarch, Louis XIV, King of France, the instant release of Monsieur Jean Pere. Old Sargeant sent out word that Mister Parry had long since sailed for France by way of England. This, however, did not abate the demands of the Most Christian King of France. Bombs began to sing overhead. Bridgar came under flag of truce to Sargeant and told him the French were desperate. It was a matter of life and death.

They must take the fort to obtain provisions for the return to Quebec.

If it were surrendered, mercy would be exercised. If taken forcibly, no power could restrain the Indians from ma.s.sacre. Sargeant, as has been explained before, had his family in the fort. Just at this moment one of the gunners committed suicide from sheer terror, and Captain Outlaw came from the powder magazine with the report that there was not another ball to fire. Before Sargeant could prevent it, an underling had waved a white sheet from one of the upper windows in surrender. The old trader took two bottles of port, opened the fort gates, walked out and sat down on a French cannon while he parleyed with de Troyes for the best terms obtainable. The English officers and their families were allowed to retire on one of the small ships to Charlton Island to await the coming of the Company's yearly boats. When the hungry French rushed into the fort, they found small store of food, but an enormous loot of furs. The season was advancing. The Chevalier de Troyes bade his men disband and find their way as best they could to Quebec. Only enough English prisoners were retained to carry the loot of furs back overland. The rest were turned adrift in the woods. Of fifty prisoners, only twenty survived the winter of 1686-87. Some perished while trying to tramp northward to Nelson, and some died in the woods, after a vain endeavour to save their miserable lives by cannibalism.

The English flag still flew at Nelson; but the French were masters of every other post on the Bay.

CHAPTER VII

YEARS OF DISASTER

In spite of French raid and foray, the Governing Committee in London pursued the even tenor of its way. Strict measures were enforced to stop illicit and clandestine trading on the part of the Company's servants.

In a minute of November 2, 1687, the Committee 'taking notice that several of the officers and servants have brought home in their coats and other garments severall pieces of furrs to the great prejudice of the Co'y, do order that such as have any garments lined with furrs shall forthwith bring the same to the warehouse and there leave all the same furrs, or in default shall forfeit and loose all salary and be liable to such prosecution as the Co'y think fitt.'

Silent anger and resentment grew against Radisson; for was it not he who had revealed the secrets of the great Bay to marauding Frenchmen?

Sargeant was sued in 20,000 damages for surrendering Albany; but on second thought, the case was settled by arbitration, and the doughty old trader was awarded 350. Jean Chouart and the other Frenchmen came back to London in 1689, and Jean was awarded 202 for all arrears. Also, about this time, the Company began trade with North Russia in whale blubber, which, like the furs, was auctioned by light of candle.

William of Orange was welcomed to the throne, in 1688, with an address from the adventurers that would have put Henry VIII's parliament to the blush: 'that in all yr. undertakings Yr. Majesty may bee as victorious as Caesar, as beloved as t.i.tus, and have the glorious long reign and peaceful end of His Majesty Augustus.' Three hundred guineas were presented along with this address in 'a faire embroidered purse by the Hon. the Deputy Gov'r. upon his humble knees.' For pushing claims of damages against France, Sir Edward Dering, the deputy-governor, was voted two hundred guineas. Stock forfeited for breaking oaths of secrecy was voted to a fund for the wounded and widows of the service. The Company's servants were put on the same pensions as soldiers in the national service. Henceforth 'one pipe of brandy' was to go on each vessel for use during war; but, in spite of 'pipes of brandy,' the seamen were now very mutinous about going aboard, and demanded pay in advance, which with 'faire words doth allay anger.' It was a difficult matter now to charter ships. The Company had to buy vessels; and it seems there was a scarcity of ready money, for one minute records that 'the tradesmen are very importunate for their bills.'

Many new shareholders had come into the Company, and 'Esquire Young' had great ado to convince them that Radisson had any rightful claim on them at all. Radisson, for his part, went to law; and the arrears of dividends were ordered to be paid. But when the war waxed hotter there were no dividends. Then Esquire Young's pet.i.tions set forth that 'M.

Radisson is living in a mean and poor condition.' When the Frenchman came asking for consideration, he was not invited into the committee room, but was left cooling his heels in the outer hall. But the years rolled on, and when, during the negotiation of the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, the Company pressed a claim of 200,000 damages against France, 'the Committee considering Mr Peter Radisson may be very useful at this time, as to affairs between the French and this Co'y, the Sec. is ordered to take coach and fetch him to the Committee'; 'on wh. the Committee had discourse with him till dinner.' The discourse--given in full in the minutes--was the setting forth, on affidavit, of that secret royal order from the king of France in 1684 to restore the forts on the Bay to England. Meanwhile amounts of 250 were voted widows of captains killed in the war; and the deputy-governor went to Hamburg and Amsterdam to borrow money; for the governor, Sir Stephen Evance, was wellnigh bankrupt.

A treaty of neutrality, in 1686, had provided that the Bay should be held in common by France and England, but the fur traders of New France were not content to honour such an ambiguous arrangement. D'Iberville came overland again to Rupert river in 1687, promptly seized the English sloop there, and sent four men across to Charlton Island to spy on Captain Bond, who was wintering on the ship _Churchill_. Bond clapped the French spies under hatches; but in the spring one was permitted above decks to help the English sailors launch the _Churchill_ from her skids. The Frenchman waited till six of the English were up the masts.

Then, seizing an ax, he brained two sailors near by, opened the hatches, called up his comrades, and, keeping the other Englishmen up the mast poles at pistol point, steered the vessel across to d'Iberville at Rupert.

The English on their side, like the French, were not disposed to remain inert under the terms of the treaty. Captain Moon sailed down from Nelson, with two strongly-manned ships, to attempt the recapture of Albany. At the moment when he had loaded a cargo of furs from the half-abandoned fort on one of his vessels, d'Iberville came paddling across the open sea with a force of painted Indian warriors. The English dashed for hiding inside the fort, and d'Iberville gaily mounted to the decks of the fur-laden ship, raised sail, and steered off for Quebec.

Meeting the incoming fleet of English vessels, he threw them off guard by hoisting an English flag, and sailed on in safety.

When France and England were again openly at war, Le Moyne d'Iberville was occupied with raids on New England; and during his absence from the Bay, Mike Gr.i.m.m.i.n.gton, who had been promoted to a captaincy, came sailing down from Nelson to find Albany in the possession of four Frenchmen under Captain Le Meux. He sacked the fort, clapped Le Meux and his men in the hold of his English vessel, carried them off to England, and presented them before the Governing Committee. Captain Mike was given a tankard valued at 36 for his services. At the same time Captain Edgecombe brought home a cargo of 22,000 beavers from Nelson, and was rewarded with 20 worth of silver plate and 100 in cash. Meanwhile our friend Jean Pere, who had escaped to France, was writing letters to Radisson, trying to tempt him to leave England, or perhaps to involve him in a parley that would undermine his standing with the English.

Gr.i.m.m.i.n.gton's successful foray encouraged the 'Adventurers of England'

to make a desperate effort to recapture all the forts on the Bay. James Knight, who had started as an apprentice under Sargeant, was sent to Albany as governor, and three trusted men, Walsh, Bailey, and Kelsey, were sent to Nelson, whence came the largest cargoes of furs.

But d'Iberville was not the man to let his winnings slip. Once more he turned his attention to Hudson Bay, and on September 24, 1694, the French frigates _Poli_ and _Salamander_ were unloading cannon, under his direction, beneath the ramparts of Nelson. For three weeks, without ceasing day or night, bombs were singing over the eighteen-foot palisades of the fort. From within Walsh, Kelsey, and Bailey made a brave defence. They poured scalding water on the heads of the Frenchmen and Indians who ventured too near the walls. From the sugar-loaf tower roofs of the corner bastions their sharpshooters were able to pick off the French a.s.sailants, while keeping in safety themselves. They killed Chateauguay, d'Iberville's brother, as he tried to force his way into the fort through a rear wall. But the wooden towers could not withstand the bombs, and at length both sides were ready to parley for terms. With the hope that they might save their furs, the English hung out a tablecloth as a flag of truce, and the exhausted fighters seized the opportunity to eat and sleep. The weather had turned bitterly cold. No ship could come from England till spring. Under these conditions, Walsh made the best bargain he could. It was agreed that the English officers should be lodged in the fort and should share the provisions during the winter. D'Iberville took possession; and again, only one post on the Bay--Albany, in charge of James Knight--remained in English hands.

On the miseries of the English prisoners that winter there is no time to dwell. D'Iberville had departed, leaving La Forest, one of his men, in command. The terms of the surrender were ignored. Only four officers were maintained in the fort and given provisions. The rest of the English were driven to the woods. Those who hung round the fort were treated as slaves. Out of the fifty-three only twenty-five survived. No English ship came to Nelson in the following summer--1695. The ship that anch.o.r.ed there that summer was a French privateer, and in her hold some of the English survivors were stowed and carried to France for ransom.

In August 1696, however, two English warships--the _Bonaventure_ and the _Seaforth_--commanded by Captain Allen, anch.o.r.ed before Nelson. La Forest capitulated almost on demand; and, again, the English with Nelson in their hands were virtually in possession of the Bay. Allen made prisoners of the whole garrison and seized twenty thousand beaver pelts.

While the _Bonaventure_ and the _Seaforth_ lay in front of the fort, two ships of France, in command of Serigny, one of d'Iberville's brothers, with provisions for La Forest, sailed in, and on sight of the English ships sailed out again to the open sea--so hurriedly, indeed, that one of the craft struck an icefloe, split, and sank. As Allen's two English vessels, on their return journey, pa.s.sed into the straits during a fog, a volley of shot poured across the deck and laid the captain dead on the spot. The ship whence this volley came was not seen; there is no further record of the incident, and we can only surmise that the shot came from Serigny's remaining ship. What is certain is that Allen was killed and that the English ships arrived in England with an immense cargo of furs, which went to the Company's warehouse, and with French captives from Nelson, who were lodged in prison at Portsmouth.