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 butter 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 massacre 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 'damnified 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 L2000 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 restitution. My Lord Churchill brought back word that the king said: 'Gentlemen, I understand your business! On my honour, I assure 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 L400 to L750. 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 butt of his musket, d'Iberville awakened the sleeping crew below decks. By way of putting the fear of God 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 bloody 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 quantity 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 anchored; but the ship seemed deserted, and the fort was fast sealed, like an oyster in a shell. 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 massacre. 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 L20,000 damages for surrendering Albany; but on second thought, the case was settled by arbitration, and the doughty old trader was awarded L350. Jean Chouart and the other Frenchmen came back to London in 1689, and Jean was awarded L202 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 Titus, 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 petitions 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 L200,000 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 L250 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 Grimmington, 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 L36 for his services. At the same time Captain Edgecombe brought home a cargo of 22,000 beavers from Nelson, and was rewarded with L20 worth of silver plate and L100 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.

Grimmington'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 assailants, 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 anchored 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, anchored 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, passed 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.

The French prisoners were finally set free and made their way to France, where the story of their wrongs aroused great indignation. D'Iberville, who was now in Newfoundland, carrying havoc from hamlet to hamlet, was the man best fitted to revenge the outrage. Five French warships were made ready—the Pelican, the Palmier, the Profond, the Violent, and the Wasp. In April 1697 these were dispatched from France to Placentia, Newfoundland, there to be taken in command by d'Iberville, with orders to proceed to Hudson Bay and leave not a vestige remaining of the English fur trade in the North.

Meanwhile preparations were being made in England to dispatch a mighty fleet to drive the French for ever from the Bay. Three frigates were bought and fitted out—the Dering, Captain Grimmington; the Hudson's Bay, Captain Smithsend; and the Hampshire, Captain Fletcher—each with guns and sixty fighting men in addition to the regular crew. These ships were to meet the enemy sooner than was expected. In the last week of August 1697 the English fleet lay at the west end of Hudson Strait, befogged and surrounded by ice. Suddenly the fog lifted and revealed to the astonished Englishmen d'Iberville's fleet of five French warships: the Palmier to the rear, back in the straits; the Wasp and the Violent, out in open water to the west; the Pelican, flying the flag of the Admiral, to the fore and free from the ice; and the Profond, ice-jammed and within easy shooting range. The Hudson's Bay ships at once opened fire on the Profond, but this only loosened the ice and let the French ship escape.

D'Iberville's aim was not to fight a naval battle but to secure the fort at Nelson. Accordingly, spreading the Pelican's sails to the wind, he steered south-west, leaving the other ships to follow his example. Ice must have obstructed him, for he did not anchor before Nelson till September 3. The place was held by the English and he could find no sign of his other ships. He waited two days, loading cannon, furbishing muskets, drilling his men, of whom a great many were French wood-runners sick with scurvy. On the morning of the 5th the lookout called down 'A sail.' Never doubting but that the sail belonged to one of his own ships, d'Iberville hoisted anchor and fired cannon in welcome. No answering shot signalled back. There were sails of three ships now, and d'Iberville saw three English men-of-war racing over the waves to meet him, while shouts of wild welcome came thundering from the hostile fort to his rear.

D'Iberville did not swerve in his course, nor waste ammunition by firing shots at targets out of range. Forty of his soldiers lay in their berths disabled by scurvy; but he quickly mustered one hundred and fifty able-bodied men and ordered ropes to be stretched, for hand hold, across the slippery decks. The gunners below stripped naked behind the great cannon. Men were marshalled ready to board and rush the enemy when the ships locked.

The Hampshire, under Captain Fletcher, with fifty-two guns and sixty fighting men, first came up within range and sent two roaring cannonades that mowed the masts and wheel-house from the Pelican down to bare decks. At the same time Grimmington's Dering and Smithsend's Hudson's Bay circled to the other side of the French ship and poured forth a pepper of musketry.

D'Iberville shouted orders to the gunners to fire straight into the Hampshire's hull; sharpshooters were to rake the decks of the two off-standing English ships, and the Indians were to stand ready to board. Two hours passed in sidling and shifting; then the death grapple began. Ninety dead and wounded Frenchmen rolled on the Pelican's blood-stained decks. The fallen sails were blazing. The mast poles were splintered. Railings went smashing into the sea. The bridge crumbled. The Pelican's prow had been shop away. D'Iberville was still shouting to his gunners to fire low, when suddenly the Hampshire ceased firing and tilted. D'Iberville had barely time to unlock the Pelican from the death grapple, when the English frigate lurched and, amid hiss and roar of flame in a wild sea, sank like a stone, engulfing her panic-stricken crew almost before the French could realize what had happened. Smithsend at once surrendered the Hudson's Bay, and Mike Grimmington fled for Nelson on the Dering.

A fierce hurricane now rose and the English garrison at Nelson had one hope left—that the wild storm might wreck d'Iberville's ship and its absent convoys. Smashing billows and ice completed the wreck of the Pelican; nevertheless the French commander succeeded in landing his men. When the storm cleared, his other ships came limping to his aid. Nelson stood back four miles from the sea, but by September 11 the French had their cannon placed under the walls. A messenger was sent to demand surrender, and he was conveyed with bandaged eyes into the fort. Grimmington,[3] Smithsend, Bailey, Kelsey—all were for holding out; but d'Iberville's brother, Serigny, came in under flag of truce and bade them think well what would happen if the hundred Indians were turned loose on the fort. Finally the English surrendered and marched out with the honours of war. Grimmington sailed for England with as many of the refugees as his ship, the Dering, could convey. The rest, led by Bailey and Smithsend, marched overland south to the fort at Albany.

[3] Grimmington, with the Dering, had reached the fort in safety. Smithsend's captive ship, the Hudson's Bay, had been wrecked with the Pelican, but he himself had escaped to the fort.

The loss of Nelson fell heavily on the Hudson's Bay Company. Their ships were not paid for; dividends stopped; stock dropped in value. But still they borrowed money to pay L20 each to the sailors. The Treaty of Ryswick, which halted the war with France, provided that possession on the Bay should remain as at the time of the treaty, and England held only Albany.



CHAPTER VIII

EXPANSION AND EXPLORATION

When the House of Orange came to the throne, it was deemed necessary that the Company's monopoly, originally granted by the Stuarts, should be confirmed. Nearly all the old shareholders, who had been friends of the Stuarts, sold out, and in 1697, the year of the disaster related in the last chapter, the Company applied for an extension of its royal charter by act of parliament. The fur buyers of London opposed the application on the grounds that:

(1) The charter conferred arbitrary powers to which a private company had no right;

(2) The Company was a mere stock-jobbing concern of no benefit to the public;

(3) Beaver was sold at an extortionate advance; bought at 6d. and sold for 6s.

(4) The English claim to a monopoly drove the Indians to the French;

(5) Nothing was done to carry out the terms of the charter in finding a North-West Passage.

All this, however, did not answer the great question: if the Company retired from the Bay, who or what was to resist the encroachments of the French? This consideration saved the situation for the adventurers. Their charter was confirmed.

The opposition to the extension of the charter compelled the Company to show what it had been doing in the way of exploration; and the journey of Henry Kelsey, the London apprentice boy, to the country of the Assiniboines, was put on file in the Company records. Kelsey had not at first fitted in very well with the martinet rules of fort life at Nelson, and in 1690, after a switching for some breach of discipline, he had jumped over the walls and run away with the Indians. Where he went on this first trip is not known. Some time before the spring of the next year an Indian runner brought word back to the fort from Kelsey: on condition of pardon he was willing to make a journey of exploration inland. The pardon was readily granted and the youth was supplied with equipment. Accordingly, on July 15, 1691, Kelsey left the camping-place of the Assiniboines—thought to be the modern Split Lake—and with some Indian hunters set off overland on foot. It is difficult to follow his itinerary, for he employs only Indian names in his narrative. He travelled five hundred miles west of Split Lake presumably without touching on the Saskatchewan or the Churchill, for his journal gives not the remotest hint of these rivers. We are therefore led to believe that he must have traversed the semi-barren country west of Lac du Brochet, or Reindeer Lake as it is called on the map. He encountered vast herds of what he called buffalo, though his description reminds us more of the musk ox of the barren lands than of the buffalo. He describes the summer as very dry and game as very scarce, on the first part of the trip; and this also applies to the half-barren lands west of Reindeer Lake. Hairbreadth escapes were not lacking on the trip of the boy explorer. Once, completely exhausted from a swift march, Kelsey fell asleep on the trail. When he awoke, there was not a sign of the straggling hunters. Kelsey waited for nightfall and by the reflection of the fires in the sky found his way back to the camp of his companions. At another time he awoke to find the high dry grass all about him in flames and his musket stock blazing. Once he met two grizzly bears at close quarters. The bears had no acquired instinct of danger from powder and stood ground. The Indians dashed for trees. Kelsey fired twice from behind bunch willows, wounded both brutes, and won for himself the name of honour—Little Giant. Joining the main camp of Assiniboines at the end of August, Kelsey presented the Indian chief with a lace coat, a cap, guns, knives, and powder, and invited the tribe to go down to the Bay. The expedition won Kelsey instant promotion.

Our old friend Radisson, from the time we last saw him—when 'the Committee had discourse with him till dinner'—lived on in London, receiving a quarterly allowance of L12 10s. from the Company; occasional gratuities for his services, and presents of furs to Madame Radisson are also recorded. The last entry of the payment of his quarterly allowance is dated March 29, 1710. Then, on July 12, comes a momentous entry: 'the Sec. is ordered to pay Mr Radisson's widow as charity the sum of L6.' At some time between March 29 and July 12 the old pathfinder had set out on his last journey. Small profit his heirs reaped for his labours. Nineteen years later, September 24, 1729, the secretary was again ordered to pay 'the widow of Peter Radisson L10 as charity, she being very ill and in great want.'

Meanwhile hostilities had been resumed between France and England; but the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 brought the game of war again to a pause and restored Hudson Bay to England. The Company received back all its forts on the Bay; but the treaty did not define the boundaries to be observed between the fur traders of Quebec pressing north and the fur traders of the Bay pressing south, and this unsettled point proved a source of friction in after years.

After the treaty the adventurers deemed it wise to strengthen all their forts. Moose, Albany, and Nelson, and two other forts recently established—Henley House and East Main—were equipped with stone bastions; and when Churchill was built later, where Munck the Dane had wintered, its walls of solid stone were made stronger than Quebec's, and it was mounted with enough large guns to withstand a siege of European fleets of that day.

The Company now regularly sent ships to Russia; and from Russia the adventurers must have heard of Peter the Great's plan to find the North Passage. The finding of the Passage had been one of the reasons for the granting of the charter, and the fur buyers' petition against the charter had set forth that small effort had been made in that direction. Now, at Churchill, Richard Norton and his son Moses, servants of the Company, had heard strange rumours from the Indians of a region of rare metals north-west inland. All these things the governor on the Bay, James Knight, pondered, as he cruised up and down from Albany to Churchill. Then the gold fever beset the Company. They sent for Knight. He was commissioned on June 3, 1719, to seek the North-West Passage, and, incidentally, to look for rare minerals.

Four ships were in the fleet that sailed for Hudson Bay this year. Knight went on the Albany with Captain Barlow and fifty men. He waited only long enough at Churchill to leave provisions. Then, with the Discovery, Captain Vaughan, as convoy, he sailed north on the Albany. On his ship were iron-bound caskets to carry back the precious metals of which he dreamed, and the framework for houses to be erected for wintering on the South Sea. With him went iron-forgers to work in the metals, and whalers from Dundee to chase the silver-bottoms of the Pacific, and a surgeon, to whom was paid the extraordinary salary of L50 on account of the unusual peril of the voyage.

What became of Knight? From the time he left Churchill, his journal ceases. Another threescore lives paid in toll to the insatiable sea! No word came back in the summer of 1720, and the adventurers had begun to look for him to return by way of Asia. Then three years passed, and no word of Knight or his precious metals. Kelsey cruised north on the Prosperous in 1719, and Hancock on the Success in 1720; Napper and Scroggs and Crow on other ships on to 1736, but never a trace did they find of the argonauts. Norton, whaling in the north in 1726, heard disquieting rumours from the Indians, but it was not till Hearne went among the Eskimos almost fifty years later that Knight's fate became known. His ships had been totally wrecked on the east point of Marble Island, that white block of granite bare as a gravestone. Out of the wave-beaten wreckage the Eskimos saw a house arise as if by magic. The savages fled in terror from such a mystery, and winter—the terrible, hard, cutting cold of hyperborean storm—raged on the bare, unsheltered island. When the Eskimos came back in the summer of 1720, a great many graves had been scooped among the drift sand and boulders. The survivors were plainly starving, for they fell ravenously on the Eskimos' putrid whale meat. The next summer only two demented men were alive. They were clad in rabbit and fox skins. Their hair and beards had grown unkempt, and they acted like maniacs. Again the superstitious Eskimos fled in terror. Next summer when the savages came down to the coast no white men were alive. The wolves had scraped open a score of graves.

It may be stated here that before 1759 the books of the Hudson's Bay Company show L100,000 spent in bootless searching and voyaging for the mythical North-West Passage. Nevertheless study-chair explorers who journeyed round the world on a map, continued to accuse the Company of purposely refusing to search for the Passage, for fear of disturbing its monopoly. So violent did the pamphleteers grow that they forced a parliamentary inquiry in 1749 into the Company's charter and the Company's record, and what saved the Company then, as in 1713, was the fact that the adventurers were the great bulwark against French aggression from Quebec.

Arthur Dobbs, a gentleman and a scholar, had roused the Admiralty to send two expeditions to search for the North-West Passage. It is unnecessary for history to concern itself with the 'tempest in a teapot' that raged round these expeditions. Perhaps the Company did not behave at all too well when their own captain, Middleton, resigned to conduct the first one on the Furnace Bomb and the Discovery to the Bay. Perhaps wrong signals in the harbours did lead the searchers' ships to bad anchorage. At any rate Arthur Dobbs announced in hysterical fury that the Company had bribed Middleton with L5000 not to find the Passage. Middleton had come back in 1742 saying bluntly, in sailor fashion, that 'there was no passage and never would be.' At once the Dobbs faction went into a frenzy. Baseless charges were hurled about with the freedom of bombs in a battle. Parliament was roused to offer a reward of L20,000 for the discovery of the Passage, and the indefatigable Dobbs organized an opposition trading company—with a capital of L10,000—and petitioned parliament for the exclusive trade. The Dobbs Galley, Captain Moon, and the California, Captain Smith, with the Shark, under Middleton, as convoy for part of the way, went out in 1746 with Henry Ellis, agent for Dobbs, aboard. The result of the voyage need not be told. There was the usual struggle with the ice jam in the north off Chesterfield Inlet, the usual suffering from scurvy. Something was accomplished on the exploration of Fox Channel, but no North-West Passage was found, a fact that told in favour of the Company when the parliamentary inquiry of 1749 came on.

In the end, an influence stronger than the puerile frenzy of Arthur Dobbs forced the Company to unwonted activity in inland exploration. La Verendrye, the French Canadian, and his sons had come from the St Lawrence inland and before 1750 had established trading-posts on the Red river, on the Assiniboine, and on the Saskatchewan. After this fewer furs came down to the Bay. It was now clear that if the Indians would not come to the adventurers, the adventurers must go to the Indians. As a beginning one Anthony Hendry, a boy outlawed from the Isle of Wight for smuggling, was permitted to go back with the Assiniboines from Nelson in June 1754.

Hendry's itinerary is not difficult to follow. The Indian place-names used by him are the Indian place-names used to-day by the Assiniboines. Four hundred paddlers manned the big brigade of canoes which he accompanied inland to the modern Oxford Lake and from Oxford to Cross Lake. The latter name explains itself. Voyageurs could reach the Saskatchewan by coming on down westward through Playgreen Lake to Lake Winnipeg, or they could save the long detour round the north end of Lake Winnipeg—a hundred miles at least, and a dangerous stretch because of the rocky nature of the coast and the big waves of the shallow lake—by portaging across to that chain of swamps and nameless lakes, leading down to the expansion of the Saskatchewan, known under the modern name of the Pas. It is quite plain from Hendry's narrative that the second course was followed, for he came to 'the river on which the French have two forts' without touching Lake Winnipeg; and he gave his distance as five hundred miles from York,[4] which would bring him by way of Oxford and Cross Lakes precisely at the Pas.

[4] Nelson. Throughout this narrative Nelson, the name of the port and river, is generally used instead of York, the name of the fort or factory.

The Saskatchewan is here best described as an elongated swamp three hundred miles by seventy, for the current of the river proper loses itself in countless channels through reed-grown swamps and turquoise lakes, where the white pelicans stand motionless as rocks and the wild birds gather together in flocks that darken the sky and have no fear of man. Between Lake Winnipeg and Cumberland Lake one can literally paddle for a week and barely find a dry spot big enough for a tent among the myriad lakes and swamps and river channels overwashing the dank goose grass. Through these swamps runs the limestone cliff known as the Pasquia Hills—a blue lift of the swampy sky-line in a wooded ridge. On this ridge is the Pas fort. All the romance of the most romantic era in the West clings to the banks of the Saskatchewan—'Kis-sis-kat-chewan Sepie'—swift angrily-flowing waters, as the Indians call it, with its countless unmapped lakes and its countless unmapped islands. Up and down its broad current from time immemorial flitted the war canoes of the Cree, like birds of prey, to plunder the Blackfeet, or 'Horse Indians.' Between these high, steep banks came the voyageurs of the old fur companies—'ti-aing-ti-aing' in monotonous sing-song day and night, tracking the clumsy York boats up-stream all the way from tide water to within sight of the Rocky Mountains. Up these waters, with rapids so numerous that one loses count of them, came doughty traders of the Company with the swiftest paddlers the West has ever known. The gentleman in cocked hat and silk-lined overcape, with knee-buckled breeches and ruffles at wrist and throat, had a habit of tucking his sleeves up and dipping his hand in the water over the gunnels. If the ripple did not rise from knuckles to elbows, he forced speed with a shout of 'Up-up, my men! Up-up!' and gave orders for the regale to go round, or for the crews to shift, or for the Highland piper to set the bagpipes skirling.

Hither, then, came Hendry from the Bay, the first Englishman to ascend the Saskatchewan. 'The mosquitoes are intolerable,' he writes. 'We came to the French house. Two Frenchmen came to the water side and invited me into their house. One told me his master and men had gone down to Montreal with furs and that he must detain me till his return; but Little Bear, my Indian leader, only smiled and said, "They dare not."'

Somewhere between the north and south branches of the Saskatchewan, Hendry's Assiniboines met Indians on horseback, the Blackfeet, or 'Archithinues,' as he calls them. The Blackfeet Indians tell us to-day that the Assiniboines and Crees used to meet the Blackfeet to exchange the trade of the Bay at Wetaskiwin, 'the Hills of Peace.' This exactly agrees with the itinerary, described by Hendry, after they crossed the south branch in September and struck up into the Eagle Hills. Winter was passed in hunting between the points where Calgary and Edmonton now stand. Hendry remarks on the outcropping of coal on the north branch. The same outcroppings can be seen to-day in the high banks below Edmonton.

It was on October 14 that Hendry was conveyed to the main Blackfeet camp.

The leader's tent was large enough to contain fifty persons. He received us seated on a buffalo skin, attended by twenty elderly men. He made signs for me to sit down on his right hand, which I did. Our leaders [the Assiniboines] set several great pipes going the rounds and we smoked according to their custom. Not one word was spoken. Smoking over, boiled buffalo flesh was served in baskets of bent wood. I was presented with ten buffalo tongues. My guide informed the leader I was sent by the grand leader who lives on the Great Waters to invite his young men down with their furs. They would receive in return powder, shot, guns and cloth. He made little answer; said it was far off, and his people could not paddle. We were then ordered to depart to our tents, which we pitched a quarter of a mile outside their lines. The chief told me his tribe never wanted food, as they followed the buffalo, but he was informed the natives who frequented the settlements often starved on their journey, which was exceedingly true.

Hendry gave his position for the winter as eight hundred and ten miles west of York, or between the sites of modern Edmonton and Battleford. Everywhere he presented gifts to the Indians to induce them to go down to the Bay. On the way back to York, the explorers canoed all the way down the Saskatchewan, and Hendry paused at Fort La Corne, half-way down to Lake Winnipeg. The banks were high, high as the Hudson river ramparts, and like those of the Hudson, heavily wooded. Trees and hills were intensest green, and everywhere through the high banks for a hundred miles below what is now Edmonton bulged great seams of coal. The river gradually widened until it was as broad as the Hudson at New York or the St Lawrence at Quebec. Hawks shrieked from the topmost boughs of black poplars ashore. Whole colonies of black eagles nodded and babbled and screamed from the long sand-bars. Wolf tracks dotted the soft mud of the shore, and sometimes what looked like a group of dogs came down to the bank, watched the boatmen land, and loped off. These were coyotes of the prairie. Again and again as the brigades drew in for nooning to the lee side of some willow-grown island, black-tailed deer leaped out of the brush almost over their heads, and at one bound were in the midst of a tangled thicket that opened a magic way for their flight. From Hendry's winter camp to Lake Winnipeg, a distance of almost a thousand miles, a good hunter could then, as now, keep himself in food summer and winter with but small labour.

Most people have a mental picture of the plains country as flat prairie, with sluggish, winding rivers. Such a picture would not be true of the Saskatchewan. From end to end of the river, for only one interval is the course straight enough and are the banks low enough to enable the traveller to see in a line for eight miles. The river is a continual succession of half-circles, hills to the right, with the stream curving into a shadowy lake, or swerving out again in a bend to the low left; or high-walled sandstone bluffs to the left sending the water wandering out to the low silt shore on the right. Not river of the Thousand Islands, like the St Lawrence, but river of Countless Islands, the Saskatchewan should be called.

More ideal hunting ground could not be found. The hills here are partly wooded and in the valleys nestle lakes literally black with wild-fowl—bittern that rise heavy-winged and furry with a boo-m-m; grey geese holding political caucus with raucous screeching of the honking ganders; black duck and mallard and teal; inland gulls white as snow and fearless of hunters; little match-legged phalaropes fishing gnats from the wet sand.

The wildest of the buffalo hunts used to take place along this section of the river, or between what are now known as Pitt and Battleford. It was a common trick of the eternally warring Blackfeet and Cree to lie in hiding among the woods here and stampede all horses, or for the Blackfeet to set canoes adrift down the river or scuttle the teepees of the frightened Cree squaws who waited at this point for their lords' return from the Bay.

Round that three-hundred mile bend in the river known as 'the Elbow' the water is wide and shallow, with such numbers of sand-bars and shallows and islands that one is lost trying to keep the main current. Shallow water sounds safe and easy for canoeing, but duststorms and wind make the Elbow the most trying stretch of water in the whole length of the river. Beyond this great bend, still called the Elbow, the Saskatchewan takes a swing north-east through the true wilderness primeval. The rough waters below the Elbow are the first of twenty-two rapids round the same number of sharp turns in the river. Some are a mere rippling of the current, more noisy than dangerous; others run swift and strong for sixteen miles. First are the Squaw Rapids, where the Indian women used to wait while the men went on down-stream with the furs. Next are the Cold Rapids, and boats are barely into calm water out of these when a roar gives warning of more to come, and a tall tree stripped of all branches but a tufted crest on top—known among Indians as a 'lob-stick,—marks two more rippling rapids. The Crooked Rapids send canoes twisting round point after point almost to the forks of the South Saskatchewan. Here, five miles below the modern fur post, at a bend in the river commanding a great sweep of approach, a gay courtier of France built Fort La Corne. Who called the bold sand-walls to the right Heart Hills? And how comes it that here are Cadotte Rapids, named after the famous voyageur family of Cadottes, whose ancestor gave his life and his name to one section of the Ottawa?



Forty miles below La Corne is Nepawin, the 'looking-out-place' of the Indians for the coming trader, where the French had another post. And still the river widens and widens. Though the country is flat, the level of the river is ten feet below a crumbling shore worn sheer as a wall, with not the width of a hand for camping-place below. On a spit of the north shore was the camping-place known as Devil's Point, where no voyageur would ever stay because the long point was inhabited by demons. The bank is steep here, flanked by a swamp of huge spruce trees criss-crossed by the log-jam of centuries. The reason for the ill omen of the place is plain enough—a long point running out with three sides exposed to a bellowing wind.

East of Devil's Point, the Saskatchewan breaks from its river bed and is lost for a hundred and fifty miles through a country of pure muskeg, quaking silt soft as sponge, overgrown with reed and goose grass. Here are not even low banks; there are no banks at all. Canoes are on a level with the land, and reeds sixteen feet high line the aisled water channels. One can stand on prow or stern and far as eye can see is naught but reeds and waterways, waterways and reeds.

Below the muskeg country lies Cumberland Lake. At its widest the lake is some forty miles across, but by skirting from island to island boatmen could make a crossing of only twenty-three miles. Far to the south is the blue rim of the Pas mountain, named from the Indian word Pasquia, meaning open country.

Hendry's canoes were literally loaded with peltry when he drew in at the Pas. There he learned a bitter lesson on the meaning of a rival's suavity. The French plied his Indians with brandy, then picked out a thousand of his best skins, a trick that cost the Hudson's Bay Company some of its profit.

On June 1 the canoes once more set out for York. With the rain-swollen current the paddlers easily made fast time and reached York on June 20. James Isham, the governor of the fort, realized that his men had brought down a good cargo of furs, but when Hendry began to talk of Indians on horseback, he was laughed out of the service. Who had ever heard of Indians on horseback? The Company voted Hendry L20 reward, and Isham by discrediting Hendry's report probably thought to save himself the trouble of going inland.

But the unseen destiny of world movement rudely disturbed the lazy trader's indolent dream. In four years French power fell at Quebec, and the wildwood rovers of the St Lawrence, unrestricted by the new government and soon organized under the leadership of Scottish merchants at Montreal, invaded the sacred precincts of the Company's inmost preserve.

In other volumes of this Series we shall learn more of the fur lords and explorers in the great West and North of Canada; of the fierce warfare between the rival traders; of the opening up of great rivers to commerce, and of the founding of colonies that were to grow into commonwealths. We shall witness the gradual, stubborn, and unwilling retreat of the fur trade before the onmarching settler, until at last the Dominion government took over the vast domain known as Rupert's Land, and the Company, founded by the courtiers of King Charles and given absolute sway over an empire, fell to the status of an ordinary commercial organization.



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

On the era prior to the Cession (1763) very few printed records of the Hudson's Bay Company exist. Most books on the later period—in which the conflict with the North-West Company took place—have cursory sketches of the early era, founded chiefly on data handed down by word of mouth among the servants and officers of the Company. On this early period the documents in Hudson's Bay House, London, must always be the prime authority. These documents consist in the main of the Minute Books of some two hundred years, the Letter Books, the Stock Books, the Memorial Books, and the Daily Journals kept from 1670 onwards by chief traders at every post and forwarded to London. There is also a great mass of unpublished material bearing on the adventurers in the Public Record Office, London. Transcripts of a few of these documents are to be found in the Canadian Archives, Ottawa, and in the Newberry Library, Chicago. Transcripts of four of the Radisson Journals—copied from the originals in the Bodleian Library, Oxford—are possessed by the Prince Society, Boston. Of modern histories dealing with the early era Beckles Willson's The Great Company (1899), George Bryce's Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company (1900), and Laut's Conquest of the Great North-West (1899) are the only works to be taken seriously. Willson's is marred by many errors due to a lack of local knowledge of the West. Bryce's work is free of these errors, but, having been issued before the Archives of Hudson's Bay House were open for more than a few weeks at a time, it lacks first-hand data from headquarters; though to Bryce must be given the honour of unearthing much of the early history of Radisson. Laut's Conquest of the Great North-West contains more of the early period from first-hand sources than the other two works, and, indeed, follows up Bryce as pupil to master, but the author perhaps attempted to cover too vast a territory in too brief a space.

Data on Hudson's tragic voyages come from Purchas His Pilgrimes and the Hakluyt Society Publications for 1860 edited by Asher. Jens Munck's voyage is best related in the Hakluyt Publications for 1897. Laut's Pathfinders of the West gives fullest details of Radisson's various voyages. The French State Papers for 1670-1700 in the Canadian Archives give full details of the international quarrels over Radisson's activities. On the d'Iberville raids, the French State Papers are again the ultimate authorities, though supplemented by the Jesuit Relations of those years. The Colonial Documents of New York State (16 vols.), edited by O'Callaghan, give details of French raids on Hudson Bay. Radisson's various petitions will be found in Laut's Conquest of the Great North-West. These are taken from the Public Records, London, and from the Hudson's Bay Company's Archives. Chouart's letters are found in the Documents de la Nouvelle France, Tome I—1492-1712. Father Sylvie, a Jesuit who accompanied the de Troyes expedition, gives the fullest account of the overland raids. These are supplemented by the affidavits of the captured Englishmen (State Papers, Public Records, London), by La Potherie's Histoire de l'Amerique, by Jeremie's account in the Bernard Collection of Amsterdam, and by the Relations of Abbe Belmont and Dollier de Casson. The reprint of the Radisson Journals by the Prince Society of Boston deserves commendation as a first effort to draw attention to Radisson's achievements; but the work is marred by the errors of an English copyist, who evidently knew nothing of Western Indian names and places, and very plainly mixed his pages so badly that national events of 1660 are confused with events of 1664, errors ascribed to Radisson's inaccuracy. Benjamin Sulte, the French-Canadian historian, in a series of papers for the Royal Society of Canada has untangled this confusion.

Robson's Hudson's Bay gives details of the 1754 period; but Robson was a dismissed employee of the Company, and his Relation is so full of bitterness that it is not to be trusted. The events of the search for a North-West Passage and the Middleton Controversy are to be found in Ellis's Voyage of the Dobbs and California (1748) and the Parliamentary Report of 1749. Later works by fur traders on the spot or descendants of fur traders—such as Gunn, Hargreaves, Ross—refer casually to this early era and are valuable for local identification, but quite worthless for authentic data on the period preceding their own lives. This does not impair the value of their records of the time in which they lived. It simply means that they had no data but hearsay on the early period.

See also in this Series: The Blackrobes; The Great Intendant; The Fighting Governor; Pathfinders of the Great Plains; Pioneers of the Pacific; Adventurers of the Far North; The Red River Colony.



INDEX

Albanel, Father, at Rupert, 51.

Albemarle, Duke of, member of Hudson's Bay Company, 36.

Allen, Captain, take Port Nelson from French, 96; killed, 97.

Arlington, Earl of, 36.

Assiniboines, or Stone Boilers, tribe of Indians, 29, 104, 106, 112, 115.

Baffin Bay, named after mate of Bylot's ship, 21.

Bailey, Captain, sent to Nelson, 94; defends fort, 95; surrenders, 101-2.

Bayley, Charles, governor of Rupert, 48; on cruise with Radisson, 51; accuses Radisson and Groseilliers of duplicity, 52.

Blackfeet Indians, 115, 116.

Bond, Captain, 68; sails for Hudson Bay, 73; captured by d'Iberville, 92.

Boston, Radisson and Groseilliers at, 32.

Bridgar, John, governor of Rupert, 60; taken prisoner by Radisson, 63; released by La Barre, 64; again governor, 74; ship captured by d'Iberville, 83-4.

Button, Thomas, sent to search for Hudson, 21.

Bylot, Robert, his search for Hudson, 21.

Cadotte Rapids, 120.

Carteret, Sir George, commissioner, takes Radisson and Groseilliers to England, 34.

Charles II receives Radisson and Groseilliers, 34, 36.

Charlton Island, where Hudson probably set adrift, 18; Captain James winters at, 27; spies marooned, 79.

Chateauguay, d'Iberville's brother, killed at Nelson, 95.

Chesnaye, Aubert de la, fur trader, 54; fits out expedition, 55.

Chouart, Jean, helps La Chesnaye's expedition, 55; tricked on board 'Happy Return,' 69; joins Hudson's Bay Company with the intention of betraying it, 70-2.

Churchill, Lord, Duke of Marlborough, governor of Hudson's Bay Company, 42, 73, 80.

Churchill, port, discovery of, 23; Danes winter at, 24; fur traders at, 26; strength of fort at, 107.

Colbert, minister of France, 53-4.

Cold Rapids, 120.

Colleton, Sir Peter, 36.

Columbia river, explorers on, 7.

Company of the North, 55-6, 72.

Craven, Earl of, 36.

Crooked Rapids, 120.

Dablon, Father, ascends the Saguenay, 28.

Danby Island, 19.

Denonville, M. de, governor of New France, 76.

Dering, Sir Edward, rewarded for pushing claim against France, 90.

Digges, English merchant adventurer, 9; finances search for Hudson, 21, 22.

Dobbs, Arthur, and the North-West Passage, 110-12.

Drax, Lady Margaret, 36.

Drueilletes, father, ascends the Saguenay, 28.

Evance, Sir Stephen, governor of Hudson's Bay Company, 74, 81, 92.

Fletcher, Captain, 98, 100-1.

Fort Albany, 74, 75, 107; Pere imprisoned in, 79.

Fort Charles, established by Groseilliers, 39, 49.

Fort Chipewyan, 6.

Fort Edmonton, 7.

Fort Frances, story of a resident of, 19.

Fort Garry, 1.

Fort La Corne, 120.

Fort Moose, 47, 81, 83, 107.

Fox, Captain, 26, 27.

Frontenac, governor of New France, 51; meets Radisson and Groseilliers, 55.

Geyer, Captain, 68.

Gibbon, Captain, 21.

Gillam, Ben, 58; arrested in Boston, 64; becomes a pirate and is executed, 64.

Gillam Island, 58.

Gillam, Zachariah, Boston sea captain, 32; in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, 35, 37, 39, 48; at Fort Charles, 52; perishes, 61.

Gorst, Thomas, secretary of the Hudson's Bay Company, 35; sails for Hudson Bay, 48.

Grand Rapids, 3, 4; portage, 6.

Greene, Henry, with Hudson, 10, 15; mutiny, 17; death, 20.

Grimmington, Mike, with Ben Gillam, 59; with the Hudson's Bay Company, 68, 73; taken prisoner, 78; re-captures Albany, 93; sent to Hudson Bay, 98, 100; flees to Nelson, 101; sails for England with refugees, 102.

Groseilliers, Medard Chouart des, French pathfinder, 27; veteran of Jesuit missions, 28; goes to Hudson Bay with Radisson, 29, 30; goes to France for redress for seizure of furs, 31; returns to Three Rivers, 32; goes to Anticosti, Port Royal, and Boston, 32; presented to Charles II, 34; receives gold chain and medal, 36; explores Hudson Bay country, 39; with 1670 expedition, 48; back in England demanding better terms, 53; goes to New France, 54; on fur-trading expedition, 56; returns to Quebec and to France, 64, 65; retires to home near Three Rivers, 66.

Hannah Bay, 12, d'Iberville crosses, 83.

Hayes river, named by Radisson, 49, 57.

Hayes, Sir James, secretary to Prince Rupert, 36, 37; meets Radisson, 67.

Hearne, hears fate of Knight's party, 109.

Hendry, Anthony, his inland journey on behalf of the Company, 112-22.

Henley House, 107.

Hudson, Henry, his search for North-West Passage, 9-13; shipwrecked, 13; his hard time on shore with mutinous crew, 13-16; cast adrift, 18; traditions as to end, 18, 19.

Hudson's Bay Company, dog brigades of, 1-2; extent of empire, 6-7; origin and formation of, 34-50; engages Radisson, 67; dividends and vessels of, 72-5, 102; disastrous conflicts with the French, 75-88, 92-102; activities of in council, 89-90; claims damages against France, 91; their charter confirmed, 103-4; forts restored by Treaty of Utrecht, 107; commissions James Knight to find North-West Passage, 108-10; parliamentary inquiry into charter and record of, 110.

Hume, Captain, 73; taken prisoner to Quebec, 78; ransomed, 80.

Iberville, Pierre Le Moyne d', his raids in Hudson Bay, 83-4, 92-3; attacks and takes Port Nelson, 94-5; in command of five French warships, 97-8; naval battle on Hudson Bay, 99-101; again takes Nelson, 101-2.

Isham, James, governor of York, 122.

James, Captain, 18; searches for North-West Passage, 26; meets Captain Fox and winters on Charlton Island, 27.

James, Duke of York (James II), 36, 42.

Jesuits, their expedition overland to Hudson Bay, 28.

Juet, mate of 'Discovery,' 10; mutinies, 12, 17; death, 20.

Kelsey, Henry, 68; sent to Nelson, 94; defends fort, 95, 101; his journey of exploration, 104-6; searches for Knight, 109.

Kirke, Sir John, 35, 36; his claim against France, 54.

Knight, James, 81; governor of Albany, 94; commissioned to find North-West Passage, 108; his fate, 109.

La Barre, governor of New France, 63-4.

La Chesnaye, fur trader, in attack on Hudson Bay posts, 81, 84-7.

La Forest, surrenders at Nelson, 96.

La Martiniere, 75, 76, 80.

La Verendrye, establishes fur-trading posts on Red river, 112.

Le Meux, Captain, surrenders at Fort Albany, 93.

Le Moyne brothers, adventurers of New France, 79, 81-3. See Iberville, Serigny, and Chateauguay.

Middleton, Captain, and the North-West Passage, 111.

Moon, Captain, 93, 111.

Munck, Jens, winters with ship at Churchill, 23-4; record of voyage, 24-6.

Nelson, Port, Button's crew encamped at, 21; fur post, 81; captured, 101; restored, 107. See York Factory.

Nepawin, 121.

New France, explorers of, 27; Jesuits in, 28; fur trade of, 29.

Nixon, governor at Moose, 74, 75.

Northern Lights, 14 note.

North-West Passage, 9, 22, 40, 107, 108, 110, 111.

Norton, Moses, 108.

Norton, Richard, 108.

Outlaw, Captain John, 58, 68, 73, 77.

Pepys, Samuel, 38.

Pere, Jean, taken prisoner, 78, 79, 84; his release demanded, 86.

Phipps, William, governor of Port Nelson, 68, 74.

Portman, John, 35.

Radisson, Pierre Esprit, explorer, 8, 19; hears of Sea of the North, 27; refused permission to trade, 29; leaves Three Rivers by night, 29; goes to Hudson Bay, 29, 30; furs seized by governor at Quebec, 31; goes to Port Royal and Boston, 32; presented to Charles II in England, 34; receives gold chain and medal, 36; and the Hudson's Bay Company, 40; made general superintendent of trade, 48; returns to England, 49, marries Mary Kirke, 49; suspected of treachery at Rupert, 51-2; returns to England, 53; joins French Navy, 53; goes again to New France, 54; leads French expedition to Bay, 55-7; explores Hayes river, 57; captures Ben Gillam's fort, 61; captures Bridgar, 62; sets out for Quebec with prisoners and booty, 63; La Barre strips him of ship and booty 64; returns to Paris, 65; ordered by France to return fur posts to Hudson's Bay Company, 66; takes oath of allegiance to England, 67; returns to the Bay, 68; returns to England, 70; goes again to Hudson Bay, 73; reappointed superintendent of trade, 74; price set on his head by France, 76; his claims for services repudiated, 91; assists Company in claim for damages, 91-2; death, 106.

Randolph, Mr, of the American Plantations, 64.

Robinson, Sir John, 35, 36.

Romulus, Peter, surgeon, 35, 48.

Rupert, 81; captured by French, 84.

Rupert, Prince, 36, 42.

Rupert's Land, taken over by Dominion Government, 123.

Ryswick, Treaty of, 91, 102.

St John, Lake, Jesuit mission near, 28.

Sandford, Red Cap, 76, 81.

Sargeant, Henry, Governor at Albany, 74, 75; attacked by French 86; surrenders, 87.

Saskatchewan river, 2, 7; description, 113-15, 118-21.

Serigny, d'Iberville's brother, 96, 101.

Shaftsbury, Earl of, 36.

Smithsend, Captain, 73; taken prisoner, 78; from a dungeon in Quebec sends a letter of warning to England, 79; reaches England, 81; sails for Hudson Bay, 98, 100; surrenders ship to d'Iberville, 101; escapes to Nelson, 101 note; goes to Albany, 102.

Sorrel, Dame, helps to finance French expedition to Hudson Bay, 55.

Squaw Rapids, 120.

Stannard, Captain, 37.

Strangers, River of, 26.

Three Rivers, Radisson and Groseilliers return to, 27, 28, 66.

Troyes, Chevalier de, 79, 81, 83, 85.

Utrecht, Treaty of, 107.

Vaughan, Captain, 108.

Viner, Sir Robert, 35, 36.

William of Orange, 90.

Winnipeg, 1.

Wolstenholme, English merchant, 9; financed search for Hudson, 21, 22.

York Factory, 113 and note 117. See Nelson.

Young, Mr, 35, 67, 91.



Footnotes:

[1] The Northern Lights.

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press



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Transcriber's note:

The page numbers of illustrations have been changed to reflect their new positions following transcription, and they are now indicated in the illustration list by 'Page' instead of 'Facing Page'.

THE END