England and France were at peace. Bayly had to respect Albanel's passports, but he wished this English envoy of French rivals far enough; and when Captain Gillam came from England the old quarrel flamed out in open hostility. Radisson and Groseillers were accused of being in league with the French traders. A thousand rumors of what next happened have gained currency. One writer says that the English and French came to blows; another, that Radisson and Groseillers deserted, going back overland with Albanel. In the Archives of Hudson's Bay House I found a letter stating that the English captain kidnapped the Jesuit Albanel and carried him a captive to England. It may as well be frankly stated these rumors are all sheer fiction. Albanel went back overland as he came. Radisson and Groseillers did not go with him, though there may have been blows. Instead, they went to England on Gillam's ship to present their case to the company.
PRINCE RUPERT (After the painting by Sir P. Lely)
The Hudson's Bay Company was uneasy. Radisson and Groseillers were aliens. True, Radisson had married Mary Kirke, the daughter of a shareholder, and was bound to the English; but if Radisson and Groseillers had forsworn one land, might they not forswear another, and go back to the French, as Frontenac's letters no doubt urged? The company offered Radisson a salary of 100 pounds a year to stay as clerk in England. They did not want him out on the bay again; but France had offered Radisson a commission in the French navy. Without more ado the two Frenchmen left London for Paris, and Paris for America.
The year 1676 finds Radisson back in Quebec engaged in the beaver trade with all those friends of his youth whose names have become famous,—La Salle of Fort Frontenac, and Charles Le Moyne the interpreter of Montreal, and Jolliet of the Mississippi, and La Fôrest who befriended La Salle, Le Chesnaye who opposed him, and Duluth whose forest rangers roved from Lake Superior to Hudson Bay. It can be guessed what these men talked about over the table of the Sovereign Council at Quebec, whither they had been called to discuss the price of beaver and the use of brandy.
The fur traders were at that time in two distinct rings,—the ring of La Salle and La Fôrest, supported by Frontenac; the Montreal ring, headed by Le Chesnaye, who fought against the opening of the west because Lake Ontario trade would divert his trade from the Ottawa. Radisson's report of that west coast of Hudson Bay, in area large as all New France, interested both factions of the fur trade intensely. He was offered two ships for Hudson Bay by the men of both rings. Because England and France were at peace, Frontenac dared not recognize the expedition officially; but he winked at it,—as he winked at many irregularities in the fur trade,—granted the Company of the North license to trade on Hudson Bay, and gave Radisson's party passports "to fish off Gaspé." In the venture Radisson, Groseillers, and the son Chouart Groseillers, invested their all, possibly amounting to $2500 each. The rest of the money for the expedition came from the Godfreys, titled seigneurs of Three Rivers; Dame Sorel, widow of an officer in the Carignan Regiment; Le Chesnaye, La Salle's lieutenant, and others.
The boats were rickety little tubs unfit for rough northern seas, and the crews sulky, underfed men, who threatened mutiny at every watering place and only refrained from cutting Radisson's throat because he kept them busy. July 11, 1682, the explorers sheered away from the fishing fleet of the St. Lawrence and began coasting up the lonely iron shore of Labrador. Ice was met sweeping south in mountainous bergs. Over Isle Demons in the Straits of Belle Isle hung storm wrack and brown fog as in the days when Marguerite Roberval pined there. Then the ships were cutting the tides of Labrador; here through fog; there skimming a coast that was sheer masonry to the very sky; again, scudding from storm to refuge of some hole in the wall.
