A Historical Geography of the British Colonies, Vol. V / Canada—Part I, Historical

by Sir Charles Prestwood Lucas

CHAPTER VI

ACADIA AND HUDSON BAY

In the last chapter the main stream of Canadian history has been followed down to the Treaty of Utrecht. New France was essentially the colony on the St. Lawrence; but with the story of Canada proper the story of Acadia is interwoven, and Acadia under another name now forms part of the Canadian Dominion. To complete the tale to 1713, it is necessary to go back to the early days of settlement in the present Maritime Provinces of the Dominion. Some notice must also be made of English commercial enterprise on the northern side of Canada, the shores of Hudson Bay.

Acadia.

Acadia, Acadie—a name which the French took from the Indians¹—included an ill-defined region. Whoever held it, at any given time, naturally claimed as large an area as possible, and, after it was ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht, the question of the boundary was a fruitful source of trouble. Under the French, Acadia was roughly coterminous with the present provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and part of the State of Maine; but Acadia proper was the peninsula of Nova Scotia. There, and on the immediately adjoining coast of the mainland, the fighting and the raids took place. It was not until after the Peace of Utrecht was signed that Cape Breton Island, whose name recalls the nationality of early voyagers to North America, became, under the new title of Île Royale, a renowned stronghold of France; while Prince Edward Island, the Île de St. Jean, played little part in the early history of North America.

¹ See [above], note.

The peninsula of Nova Scotia.

Linked to the continent by the isthmus of Chignecto, sixteen miles in breadth, the peninsula of Nova Scotia runs for some 300 miles north-east and south-west, parallel to the North American coast. From that coast it is separated on the southern side of the isthmus by the Bay of Fundy—the Baie Françoise as it was called in old days—a bay into which the sea runs strong and which divides at the head, forming on the left, the mainland side, Chignecto Bay, on the right the Basin of Mines. The shores of this latter land-locked basin were in the eighteenth century a well-known scene of Acadian settlement, and here stood the village of Grand Pré. On the same side of Nova Scotia, lower down than the Basin of Mines, is Annapolis harbour, better known in old days as Port Royal. The opposite sides of New Brunswick and Maine are deeply indented by the estuaries of various rivers—the St. John, the St. Croix, now the border stream between Canada and the United States, and, further south, the Penobscot and the Kennebec, names that constantly occur in the story of Acadian and New England warfare. Cape Sable—the sand cape—is the southernmost point of Nova Scotia: midway on the Atlantic side of the peninsula is Halifax harbour, formerly known as Chebucto; and on the north the narrow strait known as the Gut of Canso divides Nova Scotia proper from Cape Breton Island. Cape Breton Island on the south, Newfoundland on the north, mark the entrance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They are the buttresses of the main gateway of Canada.

Geographical importance of Acadia.

Sea-girt and sea-beaten was and is Acadia, with broken shores and many bays, where fishermen and freebooters came and went: a land to nurse a hardy race in small and scattered settlements, nestling in nooks and corners by inlets of the sea. Its importance did not lie in natural riches, but in its geographical position. It was the borderland of French and English colonization. Whoever held in strength Acadia and Cape Breton on the one side, and Newfoundland on the other, could command the river of Canada.

Acadia was in the English sphere of colonization, but was all important to France.

Taking the two spheres of colonization, the seaboard settlements of the English on the one hand, the inland river settlements of the French on the other, it is clear that Acadia naturally belonged to the former; it was within the sphere of which Boston was the centre, not within that which was ruled by Quebec. The coasts of Maine, of New Brunswick, and of Nova Scotia prolong the shores of New England: any dividing line has been made by man not by nature. The Boston fishermen went faring north, not into strange waters or by foreign coasts, for land and sea were as their own. Between Quebec and Port Royal, on the other hand, there was no natural connexion, yet the possession of Acadia was of more vital importance to France than to England. With Acadia in French hands the New England colonies could still grow in strength; but English occupation of Acadia, Cape Breton, and Newfoundland meant the beginning of the end for New France, the closing of the St. Lawrence, if England kept command of the sea. Thus it was that in the negotiations which ended in the Treaty of Utrecht the French King fought hard to keep Acadia, and, thwarted in this endeavour, made the most of Cape Breton Island, rearing in it the strong fortress of Louisbourg.

Early settlers in Acadia.

Acadia then was a borderland, and its history resembled that of other borderlands. Its first settlers were French, and the majority of the scanty population remained French in language, in tradition, in religion, in sympathy; but for years rival adventurers squabbled and fought, with doubtful allegiance to England or France.

The De la Tours.

We have seen how in 1613 the freebooter Argall,² sailing up from Virginia, destroyed Poutrincourt's settlement at Port Royal. In spite of this disaster, Biencourt, Poutrincourt's son, with a handful of Frenchmen, few but sturdy, still held fast to the shores of Acadia. Among them was a French Huguenot, Claude Étienne de la Tour, who with his son, Charles de la Tour, had come out from France in or about the year 1609. When the Port Royal settlement was broken up, he crossed over to the mouth of the Penobscot, and held a station there until the year 1626, when he was driven out by an expedition from New England. Biencourt appears to have died either in Acadia or in France about the year 1623, and the younger La Tour became the foremost man among the French settlers, holding a small fort near Cape Sable, which seems to have been known by various names—Fort Louis, Fort l'Omeroy or Lomeron, and Fort or Port Latour. In 1627, according to the ordinary account, the father went to France to interest the French Government in the fortunes of Acadia, and to secure the position and title of Governor for his son. It was the year in which Richelieu founded the company of the One Hundred Associates, and in 1628 a French squadron was sent out to America. The ships were intercepted by David Kirke, and Claude de la Tour, who was on board, was carried a prisoner to England.

² See [above].

Sir William Alexander. His patent. Nova Scotia.

Acadia had by this time acquired a second name, its present name of Nova Scotia. A Scotch scholar of some repute, William Alexander, born near Stirling, became tutor to Prince Henry, son of James VI of Scotland and I of England, and rose to high favour at Court. He was a prolific writer, composed tragedies and sonnets, and after the King's death completed a metrical version of the Psalms which James had begun. In 1621 Sir William Alexander, as he then was, obtained from the King a grant of the Acadian peninsula, Cape Breton Island, and all the mainland from the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence, the whole territory within these wide limits being given the name of New Scotland or Nova Scotia.

The terms of the charter were of the most liberal kind, and Alexander was constituted Lieutenant-General for the King, with practically sovereign powers. The grant was made as an appanage of the kingdom of Scotland; and, in seeking for and obtaining it, Alexander seems to have been stimulated by the fact that an English charter had lately been given to Fernando Gorges in the region of New England. In other words, the patent represented the effort of an energetic Scotchman to bring his country and his people into line with the English in the field of western adventure.

Alexander's scheme of colonization. The baronets of Nova Scotia.

Cape Breton Island he made over to another Scotchman, Sir Robert Gordon, of Lochinvar, and went to work to find settlers for the rest of his domain. His scheme was not taken up warmly; two ships were sent out in 1622 and 1623, but no settlement was formed, and he found himself involved in a debt of £6,000. He tried to rouse enthusiasm for the colonization of New Scotland by publishing a pamphlet entitled An Encouragement to Colonies; and, finding that it met with little response, he hit upon the device of inducing the King, who a few years before had created baronets of Ulster, to establish also an order of baronets of New Scotland. The recipients of the honour were to have grants of land on the other side of the Atlantic, and the fees which they paid would, it was hoped, recoup past losses and provide funds for future colonization.

Renewal of the patent by Charles I.

King James having died, his successor Charles I, in 1625, renewed Alexander's patent, and formally ratified the creation of the Nova Scotian order, the honours being to a certain extent taken up under pressure from the King. A new expedition was now set on foot, but in the meantime news came that Richelieu had formed a rival company, and that the French were preparing to make good their old title to Acadia. The prospect of foreign competition gave fresh vigour to the enterprise; Kirke offered his services to Alexander, and in 1628 captured Richelieu's squadron; while earlier in the same year four ships in charge of Alexander's son landed a party of settlers safely at Port Royal, who established themselves on the site of the old French settlement. In the following year Kirke took Quebec.

The elder La Tour joins Alexander.

The elder La Tour, we have seen, was brought a prisoner to England. There he seems to have transferred his allegiance to Great Britain, in the words of an old record to have 'turned tenant'³ to the English King. According to one account, he married a maid of honour to the Queen. At any rate, he threw in his lot with Alexander, was created a baronet of Nova Scotia, and in 1630 received for himself and his son—also created a baronet—two baronies in the Nova Scotian peninsula. In the same year he seems to have returned to Acadia with some more Scotch colonists, and vainly attempted to induce his son, who was still holding the fort near Cape Sable, to come over to the British cause, and take up the grant and honours which had been conferred upon him. The son, we read, would yield neither to persuasion nor to force, and the elder La Tour apparently went on to the Scotch settlement at Port Royal.

³ Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1574-1660, pp. 119-20.

Fort Latour built. Acadia restored to France.

Already, in 1629, the Convention of Susa had been signed between the Kings of England and France. Charles La Tour received a message of encouragement from France; and, coming to terms with his father, crossed over to the mainland, where he built Fort Latour at the mouth of the river St. John.⁴ In 1631 he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor by the French King; and in 1632 the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye restored to France 'all the places occupied in New France, Acadia, and Canada' by British subjects.

⁴ The exact date at which the La Tours founded the fort is very uncertain.

The Scotch settlement at Port Royal abandoned.

This treaty put an end to Scotch colonization of Acadia, and nothing is now left to tell of Alexander's enterprise beyond the name of Nova Scotia. The Scotch emigrants returned home, or were lost among the outnumbering French, and the old station of Port Royal was either at the time or a few years afterwards entirely deserted. The site on the northern or western side of Annapolis Basin was subsequently known as Scots Fort; but the later Port Royal, which Phipps and Nicholson took, was situated five miles away, on the other side of the estuary, and is now the town of Annapolis.

Death of Alexander.

Alexander never made good his losses. He died in 1640, in high honour and position, having been Secretary of State for Scotland and ennobled as Earl of Stirling and Viscount Canada; but he must have learnt, as all who had dealings with the Stuarts learnt, not to put his trust in princes; for his well-meant scheme to make a New Scotland, which should rival New France, ended, through the tortuous policy of the King whom he served, in utter failure.

Razilly, Denys, and D'Aunay.

Isaac de Razilly was sent by Richelieu to receive Acadia back from Alexander's representatives, upon the conclusion of the Treaty of 1632, and to be Governor of the country. With him went out, among other settlers, Nicholas Denys, a native of Tours, and Charles de Menou de Charnizay, known also as the Chevalier d'Aunay. Acadia now became the scene of intestine feuds between Frenchmen with rival claims and interests.

French adventurers in Acadia.

It is exceedingly difficult to trace the relations between the various adventurers, where they went and what they did. Razilly, who was Governor-in-chief, settled at La Héve on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. D'Aunay seems to have driven out the New Englanders from the Penobscot, and taken possession of Pentegoet at its mouth. Charles La Tour held his fort on the estuary of the St. John, his father having died or disappeared from the story, and raided, in or about 1633, an outpost established by the Plymouth settlers at Machias, north of the Penobscot. Denys formed trading stations at Chedabucto, now Guysboro, at the eastern end of the Nova Scotian peninsula, and in Cape Breton Island, leaving to posterity an account of Acadia and Cape Breton, in his book entitled Description des Costes de l'Amérique Septentrionale.⁵

⁵ Charlevoix's account is that Acadia was divided into three provinces, both for government and for ownership. Razilly had the superior command over all, and was given Port Royal and the mainland south to New England; Charles La Tour had the Acadian peninsula, excluding Port Royal; and Denys had the northern district from Canso to Gaspé, including Cape Breton Island. This leaves out D'Aunay, and the arrangement, if it existed, was modified, inasmuch as Razilly settled at La Héve, and Charles La Tour was on the river of St. John.

Feud between D'Aunay and Charles La Tour.

Razilly died in 1635 or 1636; his brother, Claude de Razilly, assigned his rights in Acadia to D'Aunay, and between the latter and Charles La Tour a deadly quarrel ensued. D'Aunay, it would seem, re-established Port Royal on the present site of Annapolis, making it the principal settlement of Acadia instead of La Héve. His rival, La Tour, had strong claims both on France and on Acadia. He had been far longer in the country than D'Aunay, he had in trying circumstances retained his allegiance to the Crown of France, he had been given a commission by the King, and moreover something was owing to him in virtue of the grants which Alexander had made in 1630 to his father and himself, which grants appear to have been subsequently construed into a transfer of the whole of Alexander's patent. However, D'Aunay had the ear of the French Court.

It is stated⁶ that, in 1638, the King prescribed certain boundaries between the two rivals, but the delimitation had no effect; for in 1640 La Tour seems to have attacked Port Royal, with the result that he was taken prisoner with his wife, both being released at the intercession of French priests. In the next year, 1641, D'Aunay obtained an order from home which revoked La Tour's commission and empowered his enemy to seize him, if he refused to submit, and send him prisoner to France. La Tour now turned for help to New England, and, in 1643, after long and scriptural debates by the Puritans as to the lawfulness of aiding 'idolaters,'⁷ succeeded in hiring four ships at Boston to join him in raiding D'Aunay's property. In the following year, however, an emissary from D'Aunay came to Boston to protest against English interference; and in October, 1644, a convention was concluded between the New Englanders and D'Aunay, providing for mutual peace and free trade.

⁶ By Haliburton in his History of Nova Scotia, vol. i, p. 53.

⁷ The younger La Tour was not, like his father, a Huguenot.

Madame La Tour. D'Aunay gains possession of Fort Latour.

D'Aunay had now the upper hand, and Madame La Tour becomes the heroine of the story. She had followed her husband's fortunes with undaunted courage, and had been to France to plead his cause. Going on to London, she took passage on board ship, the master contracting to take her to Fort Latour. Instead of carrying out his contract, he wasted time in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and finally landed her at Boston, where she brought an action against him and was awarded damages of £2,000. Reaching Fort Latour, she was attacked there by D'Aunay in 1645,⁸ while her husband was absent, and the garrison reduced to a very few men. She held the fort, notwithstanding, with so much determination, and in spite of treachery within the walls, that D'Aunay agreed to a capitulation, by which all the lives of the defenders were to be spared. The terms were broken as soon as he obtained possession of the fort, and the whole of the garrison was put to death, with the exception of Madame La Tour and one man who was spared to act as hangman to the rest. Madame La Tour herself was compelled to witness the execution with a rope round her neck, and three weeks afterwards she died.

⁸ According to Haliburton, D'Aunay besieged Madame La Tour in the fort twice, being beaten off the first time. Kingsford gives the date of the siege as 1647.

Later career of Charles La Tour.

Ruined and an outlaw, La Tour found his way to Newfoundland, where he tried in vain to enlist the aid of the English governor, Sir David Kirke. He is said also to have visited Quebec and Hudson Bay, and in his distress to have made an ill return for the kindness which had been shown to him at Boston, by raiding a ship from that port and ejecting her crew on to the Nova Scotian coast in the middle of winter. Ultimately, in 1650, D'Aunay died, and La Tour, who must have had a keen eye to business, some little time after married the widow. New complications now arose. A creditor of D'Aunay, Le Borgne by name, came out from France to enforce his claims against D'Aunay's property, and in virtue of those claims to take possession of Acadia. He first attacked Denys⁹ at Chedabucto, and took him prisoner. He was next preparing to attack La Tour, when events took a wholly different turn, and the English again became masters of Acadia.

⁹ Denys went to France and secured, in 1654, the restitution of his property, together with a commission as Governor from Cape Canso to Cape Rosiers or Race, i.e. of Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. He was then raided by another Frenchman, Giraudière. He seems to have eventually given up his stations in Cape Breton, and in 1679 was at Quebec, old and blind.

The English under Sedgwick take Acadia.

Cromwell, in 1654, sent out an expedition to take Manhattan Island from the Dutch, Major-General Sedgwick being in command. Peace being made with the Netherlands, the force intended to drive the Dutch out of Manhattan was turned against the French in Acadia; and in quick succession, Sedgwick reduced the fort at Penobscot, La Tour's station on the St. John, and Port Royal, where Le Borgne was at the time.¹⁰ Mazarin attempted to recover these posts under the twenty-fifth article of the Treaty of Westminster of November 3, 1655; but, less complaisant than the Kings who preceded or who followed him, Cromwell refused to entertain the proposals for a transfer.

¹⁰ Sedgwick was shortly afterwards sent to Jamaica, where he died in June, 1656. In Appendix xxviii to Carlyle's Oliver Cromwell, reference is made to the taking of the French forts in Acadia, with the following characteristic but not very accurate note: 'Oliver kept his forts and his Acadie through all French treaties for behoof of his New Englanders. Not till after the Restoration did the country become French again, and continue such for a century or so.'

La Tour and Temple become owners of Acadia. Death of La Tour.

La Tour now turned to account the fact that he had been created a Nova Scotian baronet and received a grant from Alexander; he became a British subject; and on August 10, 1656, letters patent were issued by which he became, under the name of Sir Charles La Tour, joint owner of Acadia with Sir Thomas Temple and William Crowne. Very shortly afterwards he sold his interest to Temple, but appears to have remained in Acadia, where he died in 1666.

Acadia restored to France by the Treaty of Breda.

Temple, who received a commission from Cromwell as Governor of Acadia, and went out there in 1657, laid out money in the country and carried on trade with energy and success. He maintained the existing stations, planted a new settlement at Jemseg on the St. John river, higher up than Fort Latour, and drove out a son of Le Borgne, who attempted to reoccupy La Héve; but, like Alexander before him, he suffered at the hands of the Stuarts, for Charles II, after renewing his commission as Governor and creating him a baronet of Nova Scotia, subsequently, in spite of remonstrances from Massachusetts, restored Acadia to France by the Treaty of Breda, in 1667, in return for French concessions in the West Indies. Temple attempted to dispute the extent covered by the treaty, but with no effect; and, in 1670, the whole area became again a French possession. Temple retired to Boston with a promise of £16,200 which he never received, and finally died in London in 1674.

The above is a bare recital of early days in Acadia, when it was, in effect, no man's land. The story might be made picturesque, with La Tour and his first wife for hero and heroine, with some embellishment of Alexander's scheme, and a little dressing of D'Aunay, Denys, and the other adventurers who come on the scene; but in truth it is a very slender record of two or three Frenchmen and Englishmen, who did a little trade or a little fishing on desolate shores, and who plundered each other in rather squalid fashion—left to themselves by their rulers, except when their acts or their claims had a bearing on international questions.

Acadia under French rule.

When Temple retired in 1670 in favour of a new French commander, De Grandfontaine, the total number of settlers in Acadia did not exceed 400. Some new French colonists now came in: the beginning of settlement was made at Chignecto and the Basin of Mines, and communication was for a time opened by land between Acadia and Quebec. The great majority of the French inhabitants were at Port Royal; but Pentegoet on the Penobscot was the seat of government, until, in 1674, it was taken and plundered by a Dutch privateering vessel, the same fate befalling the fort of Jemseg on the St. John river. Chambly, who had succeeded Grandfontaine as Commander in Acadia, was carried off a prisoner to Boston, and Pentegoet was for the time abandoned by the French. Two years later, in 1676, it was occupied by the Dutch; but the latter were in their turn driven out by the New Englanders,¹¹ and the place passed into the hands of a Frenchman notable in Acadian border warfare, the Baron de St. Castin.

¹¹ In the Government records at The Hague, under date Oct. 27, 1678, there is a claim of the Netherlands West India Company against Great Britain to the forts of Penobscot and St. John in Acadie and Nova Scotia, and a request that they may be allowed to remain in quiet and peaceable possession thereof.

St. Castin at Pentegoet.

He was a Béarnese, and had come out to Canada as an officer in the Carignan Regiment. Finding, like other Frenchmen, a charm in forest life, he drifted off to Acadia and lived as an Indian among Indians, a devout Roman Catholic, but in other respects a native chief, with his squaws and following of savage warriors. He established himself at Pentegoet, on or near the site of the old fort, where Castine now stands; he raided and was raided; in time of peace making money by trade, in time of war joining in the border forays. For Pentegoet was the southernmost station of the French, standing on soil claimed by the English, and granted by Charles II to the Duke of York. Similarly, Pemaquid, near the Kennebec, established in 1677, was the northernmost post of the English; and, if there was a line between the two nations, it was between Pentegoet and Pemaquid. But French influence extended to the Kennebec river, and Indian converts of French priests were to be found in the immediate neighbourhood of Pemaquid.

French priests and the Abenaki Indians.

In 1676, the war between the New Englanders and the neighbouring Indians, known as Philip's war, came to an end, leaving bitterness between the conquered natives and victorious colonists. Hatred of the English meant love of the French; and the Abenaki Indians of Acadia and Maine, under the tutelage of fanatical and unscrupulous French priests, became trained to enmity with the heretics; many of them migrated to mission stations in Canada; while those who remained behind were ever ready to obey the call to murder and pillage. In Acadia, even more than in Canada proper, the Indian as a convert became the tool of the Frenchman, and the Frenchman lent himself to the barbarism of the Indian. The full effects of the unnatural blend were seen and felt a little later on; but for twenty years after the Treaty of Breda and the restoration of Acadia to France, there was more often peace than war between the English and the French; and the Boston fishermen were, about 1678, licensed for the time being by the French Commandant, La Vallière, to ply their trade on the Acadian coasts.

French Governors and colonists of Acadia.

With some trading of this kind and with a good deal of privateering, the years passed by. Perrot, who had been Governor of Montreal and had distinguished himself even among French officials of the time for corrupt practices, succeeded La Vallière in 1684, with a commission as Governor of Acadia. Still intent on enriching himself by illicit trade, he was recalled in 1687, and his place was taken by Meneval. The latter, like Perrot, was subordinate to the Governor-General of Canada, and the number of colonists whom he ruled was, according to a census held in 1686, 858, 600 of whom lived at or near Port Royal, and the remainder chiefly at Beaubassin at the head of Chignecto Bay, and on the Basin of Mines.

Acadia ceded to England by the Peace of Utrecht.

In 1688, Andros, then Governor of the New England colonies, plundered St. Castin's station at Pentegoet; the French and Indians retaliated, taking the fort of Pemaquid in the following year; and there followed a long series of butcheries and reprisals, of which an account has already been given in a preceding chapter, the taking of Fort Royal by Phipps in 1690, and, in 1710, its final surrender to Nicholson. In the end, the Treaty of Utrecht provided in its twelfth article that 'all Nova Scotia or Accadie with its ancient boundaries' should be 'yielded and made over to the Queen of Great Britain and to her Crown for ever.'

Henry Hudson sails to the Arctic regions and is lost. The search for the North-West Passage. Button.

We have seen¹² that, in 1609, Henry Hudson led Dutchmen into the present State of New York, and left his name to the river on which the city of New York stands. In the following year, he took service under an English syndicate, to make a further attempt to find a North-West Passage to the Indies. In April, 1610, he started in a small ship, the Discovery, found his way through Hudson Straits into Hudson Bay, wintered at the extreme south-eastern end of James' Bay, and, cast adrift by his mutinous followers in the following summer, never saw home again, 'dearly purchasing the honour of having this large Strait and Bay called after his name.'¹³ The Arctic seas, where he met his death, and where his name has lived through the centuries, were visited again and again by English explorers, still seeking for the North-West Passage. One voyager after another went out, hoping to return by China and the East. In April, 1612, Captain Button set forth with two ships, one of which was Hudson's old vessel, the Discovery, reached the western coast of Hudson Bay—which was long called after him, Button's Bay—wintered at Port Nelson, at the mouth of the Nelson river, and returned in the autumn of 1613.

¹² See [above].

¹³ Oldmixon's British Empire in America (1741 ed.), vol. i, p. 543.

Royal charter granted to the Merchants Discoverers of the North-West Passage.

His instructions had been drawn up by the young Prince of Wales, Prince Henry, who died not long afterwards; and three months after Button started, the merchants at whose expense both his expedition and Hudson's had been fitted out, were incorporated under royal charter as the 'Company of the Merchants of London Discoverers of the North-West Passage,' having the Prince of Wales as governor or 'Supreme Protector,' and including among many well-known names that of Richard Hakluyt.

Gibbons. Bylot and Baffin.

In 1614, the Discovery was sent out again under the command of Captain Gibbons, but returned in the same year, having penetrated no further than Hudson Strait. In 1615, Bylot and Baffin set sail for the North, again taking with them the Discovery; they too returned in the same year, concluding that the North-West Passage was not to be found by the way of Hudson Straits. Once more, in the next year, 1616, the same men went out, and once more the stout old ship, the Discovery, carried them, the voyage resulting in the exploration of Baffin Bay. For two years after their return there was a respite from Arctic voyages, but in 1619 Captain Hawkridge led a fresh expedition, which proved a failure.

Luke Foxe and Thomas James.

Much money had now been spent in the attempt to find a North-West Passage, and little had been achieved; but after an interval of twelve years, in 1631, two more Arctic voyages took place. One expedition was commanded by a Yorkshireman, Luke Foxe, the other by Captain Thomas James, who was connected with Bristol. The former was backed by London merchants, the latter was a Bristol venture; but both received sanction and encouragement from the King. James' voyage was unfortunate and barren of result; but Foxe, though he did not find the Passage, which was the one aim and object of all these early attempts, completed the exploration of Hudson Bay, and penetrated further north than previous sailors by the way of what is still known as Fox Channel.

The period of discovery in the far North followed by trading enterprise.

With these two voyages the first chapter in Arctic discovery comes to an end. As in the record of English colonization we have a distinct break between the time of discovery and adventure on the one hand, and the time of trade and settlement on the other, so even in the far North there was a time of exploration, followed after an interval by a time of trade. All the early voyages, which have been recounted above, were voyages of discovery, and, though they were fitted out for the most part by syndicates of merchants, their object was not to bring back furs, or to establish trading stations, but to search for a new route to the East.¹⁴

¹⁴ A most excellent account of the early voyages in search of a North-West Passage is given in Mr. Miller Christy's Introduction to the Voyages of Foxe and James to the North-West (Hakluyt Society, 1894).

Zachariah Gillam. Radisson and Des Groseilliers.

Forty years passed away and, in the year 1668, an English ship once more found its way into Hudson Bay. The ship was named the Nonsuch, her commander was Captain Zachariah Gillam, and Prince Rupert seems to have had a hand in sending her out. The expedition was designed to establish trade with the Indians, and Gillam wintered in James Bay, near where Hudson had wintered in 1610, building a fort called Charles Fort at the mouth of a river which was named Rupert river. The fort was subsequently known as Fort Rupert or Rupert House. It is stated that this new enterprise was undertaken in consequence of information received from two French settlers in Canada named Radisson and Des Groseilliers, and that the latter was on board Gillam's ship, while Radisson had embarked on another vessel which started from England with Gillam, but put back on account of stress of weather.

French claims to priority in Hudson Bay.

How far these two Frenchmen contributed to the beginning of trade in Hudson Bay, and to the founding of the Hudson Bay Company, has been a matter of much controversy. The question was originally of some importance, for French claims to priority of occupation in the Arctic regions rested in large measure on the real or the alleged doings of the two adventurers. Like the rest of the world, they must have heard of the existence of Hudson Bay, for the voyages to discover the North-West Passage, though not made by Frenchmen, were not made in secret; and they had gathered information from the Indians of Canada as to the possibilities of fur trading in these northern regions. They had more than once attempted, between 1658 and 1663, to make their way by land to the bay, but never seem to have reached its shores; and the first recorded overland visit from Canada, is that of a French priest, Albanel, who, in 1671-2, journeyed from Quebec to Lake St. John, and thence, by the line of the Rupert river, came to the sea, to find an English factory already established at the mouth of the river.

Incorporation of the Hudson Bay Company. Rupert's Land.

Gillam returned to England in 1669, and on May 2, 1670, the Hudson Bay Company came into existence. On that day Charles II issued a royal charter, creating a corporate body under the title of 'The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay.' Prince Rupert was the first Governor; Albemarle, Ashley, and Arlington were among the original grantees. The preamble of the charter recited that the persons named had 'at their own great cost and charges, undertaken an expedition for Hudson's Bay, in the North-West part of America, for the discovery of a new passage into the South Sea, and for the finding some trade for furs, minerals, and other considerable commodities'; and in their corporate capacity the Company were constituted absolute lords and proprietors, with a complete monopoly of trade of all the lands and seas 'that lie within the entrance of the straits, commonly called Hudson's Straits,' so far as they were not already actually granted to or possessed by British subjects, or the subjects of any other Christian Prince or State. The charter enacted that 'the said land' should be 'from henceforth reckoned and reputed as one of our plantations or colonies in America, called Rupert's Land.'

Operations of the company.

Armed with practically unlimited powers over an unlimited area, the company lost little time in sending out ships and establishing factories. In addition to Fort Rupert at the south-eastern end of James Bay, Fort Hayes, or Moose Fort, was constructed at the south-western end of the bay, at the mouth of the Moose river; and some distance to the north of the latter fort, Fort Albany was placed at the outlet of the Albany river. Voyages were also made to the mouth of the Nelson river, on the western shore of Hudson Bay, but no attempt was made to plant a factory there till the year 1682.

Collision between French and English in Hudson Bay. A Canadian company formed.

It was in that year and at Fort Nelson, as it was called, that French and English first came into collision in the far North. Radisson and Des Groseilliers, who had taken service with the English in consequence of being fined by the Governor of Canada for making their early journeys without his licence, subsequently returned to Canada, and piloted their countrymen by sea into Hudson Bay. A company was formed in Canada in 1682, the Compagnie du Nord, and sent out an expedition from Quebec with these two men on board. They reached the Nelson river; a few days before they arrived a Boston vessel appeared on the scene, and a few days subsequently a vessel came from England, sent by the Hudson Bay Company to build a fort. After a short interval the French overpowered the English; but two years later, in 1684, Radisson and Des Groseilliers having in the meantime again come back to the Hudson Bay Company, that company recovered its fort, and the French lost their footing on Hudson Bay.

Attack made overland from Canada on the English forts on Hudson Bay.

In the following year two Frenchmen passed overland from the bay to Canada by the Abbitibbi river, Lake Temiscaming, and the Ottawa; and it was determined to send a Canadian expedition by that route to attack the factories of the Hudson Bay Company. The rulers of Canada viewed with distrust English settlements to the north of New France, as they feared and distrusted the English colonies on the southern side, and they determined if possible to strangle them in infancy. Denonville was now Governor of Canada; and early in the year 1686 he dispatched a party of soldiers and Canadians to attack the forts on Hudson Bay. It was the kind of expedition in which French Canadians excelled, indifferent to privation and hardship, trained to toil through ice and snow, through unknown forests, making the rivers the highways for sleigh or canoe. Their leader was De Troyes, and with him went three sons of the celebrated Le Moyne family, including the most noted of them, Iberville. The Frenchmen followed the line of the Ottawa and the Abbitibbi, and in June, 1686, surprised and took Fort Hayes on the outlet of the Moose river. Crossing the eastern end of James Bay on the floating ice, they next reached Fort Rupert, seized a ship which was moored in front of the fort, and overpowered the fort itself. The sea was by this time open to navigation, and in canoes and the captured vessel the victorious Frenchmen turned west to attack Fort Albany. There was here some semblance of siege, but the little English garrison was forced to capitulate, and leaving Iberville in charge of the fort, which was renamed Fort St. Anne, De Troyes returned in November to Canada.

Complaints of the Hudson Bay Company against the seizure of their forts. The English forts recovered.

This successful raid was organized and carried out in a time of peace between the English and French Crowns; and, when the Englishmen who had been taken prisoners at the forts found their way home, the Hudson Bay Company laid the case before the Government, demanding satisfaction for the wrong done and restitution of their property. There was little likelihood of redress while James II was King of England. On November 16, 1686, he concluded a treaty of neutrality with the French King, the Treaty of Whitehall; and a mixed commission of French and English was appointed to inquire into the claims of the company. No settlement was arrived at: in 1688 came the Revolution in England; in 1692 the battle of La Hogue crippled the French at sea; and at length, in 1693, an English expedition was sent to Hudson Bay which recovered all the forts in James Bay.

Iberville takes Port Nelson and the forts in James Bay. They are recovered by the English.

The northernmost post of the Hudson Bay Company, the post on the Nelson river, or rather on the Hayes river, which flows into the same estuary, had not been taken by the French in their buccaneering expedition of 1686. It was known indifferently as Port Nelson or Fort York. It was at some distance from the forts in James Bay, and promised to be an outlet for trade from the regions west of the great lakes. It had been threatened by the French in 1690, and in October, 1694, the bold and restless Iberville, who had returned to Canada in 1687, appeared before it with two ships. After a short siege it capitulated, and was renamed Fort Bourbon; and Iberville followed up his success by recapturing the forts in James Bay. Thus, by the middle of 1695, the French held every post in Hudson Bay. In the next year came English ships, and all the positions were regained for England.

Fresh raid by Iberville. The Peace of Ryswick. The Peace of Utrecht. Hudson Bay secured to England.

Once more, in 1697, Iberville appeared on the scene. He had in the meantime taken Fort Pemaquid on the Acadian frontier, and overrun Newfoundland; and starting from Placentia, with four ships of war sent out from France, he made sail for Hudson Bay. The destination was Port Nelson; but the vessels became separated, and with a single ship, Iberville, when nearing the fort, came into collision with three armed English merchantmen. The bold Frenchman closed with them, one to three, sank one of the vessels, took a second, while the third made its escape. A heavy gale came on, his own ship was driven ashore and broken up; but landing with his men, he was rejoined shortly afterwards by the rest of the French squadron, and laying siege to the fort compelled it to capitulate. This feat of arms took place early in September, 1697; on the twentieth of the same month the Peace of Ryswick was signed, and under its terms the French were placed in possession of all the Hudson Bay forts, with the exception of Fort Albany.¹⁵ They held them down to the year 1713, when the Peace of Utrecht in no uncertain words gave back to Great Britain 'to be possessed in full right for ever, the Bay and Straits of Hudson, together with all lands, seas, seacoasts, rivers and places situate in the same Bay and Straits and which belong thereunto, no tracts of land or of sea being excepted, which are at present possessed by the subjects of France.' Boundaries, which by the treaty were to be defined, were never fixed; but no French ship appeared again with hostile intent in Hudson Bay until the year 1782.

¹⁵ The manner in which the Treaty of Ryswick worked out in favour of the French in Hudson Bay is explained, as far as it can be explained, in Kingsford's History of Canada, vol. iii, pp. 39-41.

NOTE.—For the first part of the above chapter, see
KINGSFORD'S History of Canada, vol. ii.
Sir J. BOURINOT'S Cape Breton (referred to [above], note).
The same author's Canada, in the 'Story of the Nations' Series, chap. vii, and
Dr. PATTERSON'S Paper on Sir William Alexander and the Scottish Attempt to Colonize Acadia, published in the Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, vol. x, 1892.

For the second part, see KINGSFORD'S History of Canada, vol. iii.

Two books have recently been published on the Hudson Bay Company, viz: The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company, by GEORGE BRYCE, M.A., LL.D., and The Great Company (1667-1871), by BECKLES WILSON.