Seven large ships set sail from England for Hudson Bay in 1685, carrying Radisson and young Chouart and the five unwilling Frenchmen. The company's forts on the bay now numbered four: Nelson, highest up on the west; Albany, southward on an island at the mouth of Albany River; Moose, just where James Bay turns westward; and Rupert at the southeast corner. But French ships under La Martinière of the Sovereign Council had also set sail from Quebec in 1685, commissioned by the indignant fur traders to take Radisson dead or alive; for Quebec did not know the secret orders of the French court, which had occasioned Radisson's last defection.
July saw the seven Hudson's Bay ships worming their way laboriously through the ice floes of the straits. Small sails only were used. With grappling hooks thrown out on the ice pans and crews toiling to their armpits in ice slush, the boats pulled themselves forward, resting on the lee side of some ice floe during ebb tide, all hands out to fight the roaring ice pans when the tide began to come in. At length on the night of July 27, with crews exhausted and the timbers badly rammed, the ships steered to rest in a harbor off Digge's Island, sheltered from the ice drive. The nights of that northern sea are light almost as day; but clouds had shrouded the sky and a white mist was rising from the water when there glided like ghosts from gloom two strange vessels. Before the exhausted crews of the English ships were well awake, the waters were churned to foam by a roar of cannonading. The strange ships had bumped keels with the little Merchant Perpetuana of the Hudson's Bay. Radisson, on whose head lay a price, was first to realize that they were attacked by French raiders; and his ship was out with sails and off like a bird, followed by the other English vessels, all except the little Perpetuana, now in death grapple between her foes. Captain Hume, Mates Smithsend and Grimmington fought like demons to keep the French from boarding her; but they were knocked down, fettered and clapped below hatches while the victors plundered the cargo. Fourteen men were put to the sword. August witnessed ship, cargo, and captives brought into Quebec amid noisy acclaim and roar of cannon. The French had not captured Radisson nor ransomed Chouart, but there was booty to the raiders. New France had proved her right to trade on Hudson Bay spite of peace between France and England, or secret commands to Radisson. Thrown in a dungeon below Château St. Louis, Quebec, the English captives hear wild rumors of another raid on the bay, overland in winter; and Smithsend, by secret messenger, sends warning to England, and for his pains is sold with his fellow-captives into slavery in Martinique, whence he escapes to England before the summer of 1686.
But what is Jan Peré of Duluth's bushrovers doing? All unconscious of the raid on the ships, the governors of the four English forts awaited the coming of the annual supplies. At Albany was a sort of harbor beacon as well as lookout, built high on scaffolding above a hill. One morning, in August of 1685, the sentry on the lookout was amazed to see three men, white men, in a canoe, steering swiftly down the rain-swollen river from the Up-Country. Such a thing was impossible. "White men from the interior! Whence did they come?" Governor Sargeant came striding to the fort gate, ordering his cannon manned. Behold nothing more dangerous than three French forest rangers dressed in buckskins, but with manners a trifle too smooth for such rough garb, as one doffs his cap to Governor Sargeant and introduces himself as Jan Peré, a woodsman out hunting.
CONTEMPORARY FRENCH MAP OF HUDSON BAY AND VICINITY
England and France were at peace; so Governor Sargeant invited the three mysterious gentlemen inside to a breakfast of sparkling wines and good game, hoping no doubt that the wines would unlock the gay fellows' tongues to tell what game they were playing. As the wine passed freely, there were stories of the hunt and the voyage and the annual ships. When might the ships be coming? "Humph," mutters Sargeant through his beard; and he does n't urge these knights of the wild woods to tarry longer. Their canoe glides gayly down coast to the salt marshes, where the shooting is good; but by chance that night, purely by chance, the French leave their canoe so that the tide will carry it away. Then they come back crestfallen to the English fort.
Meanwhile a ship has arrived with the story of the raid on the Perpetuana. Sargeant is so enraged that he sends two of the French spies across to Charlton Island, where they can hunt or die; Monsieur Jan Peré he casts into the cellar of Albany with irons on his wrists and balls on his feet. When the ships sail for England, Peré is sent back as prisoner without having had one word with Chouart Groseillers. As for the two Frenchmen placed on Charlton Island, did Sargeant think they were bush-rovers and would stay on an island? By October they have laid up store of moose meat, built themselves a canoe, paddled across to the mainland, and are speeding like wildfire overland to Michilimackinac with word that Jan Peré is held prisoner at Albany. As Jan Peré drops out of history here, it may be said that he was kept prisoner in England as guarantee for the safety of the English crew held prisoners at Quebec. When he escaped to France he was given money and a minor title for his services.
The news that Peré lay in a dungeon on Hudson Bay supplied the very excuse that the Quebec fur traders needed for an overland raid in time of peace. These were the wild rumors of which the captive English crew sent warning to England; but the northern straits would not be open to the company ships before June of 1686, and already a hundred wild French bushrovers were rallying to ascend the Ottawa to raid the English on Hudson Bay.
And now a change comes in Canadian annals. For half a century its story is a record of lawless raids, bloody foray, dare-devil courage combined with the most fiendish cruelty and sublime heroism. Only a few of these raids can be narrated here. June 18, 1686, when the long twilight of the northern night merged with dawn, there came out from the thicket of underbrush round Moose Factory, Hudson Bay, one hundred bush-rovers, led by Chevalier de Troyes of Niagara, accompanied by Le Chesnaye of the fur trade, Quebec, and the Jesuit, Sylvie. Of the raiders, sixty-six were Indians under Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and his brothers, Maricourt and Ste. Hélène, aged about twenty-four, sons of Charles Le Moyne, the Montreal interpreter. Moose Factory at this time boasted fourteen cannon, log-slab palisades, commodious warehouses, and four stone bastions,—one with three thousand pounds of powder, another used as barracks for twelve soldiers, another housing beaver pelts, and a fourth serving as kitchen. Iberville and his brothers, scouting round on different sides of the fort, soon learned that not a sentinel was on duty. The great gate opposite the river, studded with brass nails, was securely bolted, but not a cannon had been loaded. The bushrangers then cast aside all clothing that would hamper, and, pistol in hand, advanced silent and stealthy as wild-cats. Not a twig crunched beneath the moccasin tread. The water lay like glass, and the fort slept silent as death. Hastily each raider had knelt for the blessing of the priest. Pistols had been recharged. Iberville bade his wild Indians not to forget that the Sovereign Council of Quebec offered ten crowns reward for every enemy slain, twenty for every enemy captured. In fact, there could be no turning back. Two thousand miles of juniper swamps and forests lay between the bush-rovers and home. They must conquer or perish. De Troyes led his white soldiers round to make a pretense of attack from the water front. Iberville posted his sixty-six Indians along the walls with muskets rammed through the loopholes. Then, with an unearthly yell, the Le Moyne brothers were over the tops of the pickets, swords in hand, before the English soldiers had awakened. The English gunner reeled from his cannon at the main gate with head split to the collar bone. The gates were thrown wide, trees rammed the doors open, and Iberville had dashed halfway up the stairs of the main house before the inmates, rushing out in their nightshirts, realized what had happened. Two men only were killed, one on each side. The French were masters of Moose Fort in less than five minutes, with sixteen captives and rich supply of ammunition.