[2] While there are earlier records referring to the Company of the North, this year (1682) is generally given as the date of its founding. Similarly 1670 is taken as the date of the founding of the Hudson's Bay Company, although, as we have seen, it was practically begun three years earlier.
With profound disappointment Radisson and Groseilliers saw at Isle Percé in July the boats which they were to have. The St Pierre, outfitted for Radisson, was a craft of only fifty tons and boasted a crew of only twelve men. Groseilliers' vessel, the St Anne, which carried his son, Jean Chouart, was still smaller and had fifteen men. Both crews consisted of freshwater sailors who tossed with woe and threatened mutiny when the boats rolled past the tidal bore of Belle Isle Strait and began threading their way in and out of the 'tickles' and fiords of the ribbed, desolate, rocky coast of Labrador. Indeed, when the ships stopped to take on water at a lonely 'hole in the wall' on the Labrador coast, the mutiny would have flamed into open revolt but for the sail of a pirate ship that appeared on the horizon. Thereupon Radisson's ships crowded sail to the wind and sped on up the coast. What pirate ship this was may be guessed from what happened three weeks later.
Early in September the two vessels reached the Hayes river, which Radisson had named twelve years before and where he had set up the arms of the English king. Advancing fifteen miles up-stream, they chose a winter harbour. Leaving Groseilliers to beach the boats and erect cabins, Radisson and young Jean Chouart canoed farther up to the rendezvous of the Cree and Assiniboine Indians. The Indians were overjoyed to meet their trader friend of long past years. The white man's coming meant firearms, and firearms ensured invincible might over all foes. 'Ho, young men, be not afraid. The Sun is favourable to us. Our enemies shall fear us. This is the man we have wished for since the days of our fathers,' shouted the chief of the Assiniboines as he danced and tossed arrows of thanks to the gods.
When the voyageurs glided back down-stream on the glassy current, other sounds than those of Indian chants greeted them. The Hayes river, as we have seen, is divided from the Nelson on the north by a swampy stretch of brushwood. Across the swamp boomed and rolled to their astonished ears the reverberation of cannon. Was it the pirate ship seen off Labrador? or was it the coming of the English Company's traders? Radisson's canoe slipped past the crude fort that Groseilliers had erected and entered the open Bay. Nothing was visible but the yellow sea, chopped to white caps by the autumn wind. When he returned to the fort he learned that cannonading had been heard from farther inland. Evidently the ships had sailed up the Nelson river. Now, across the marsh between the two rivers lay a creek by which Indian canoes from time immemorial had crossed. Taking a canoe and three of his best men, Radisson paddled and portaged over this route to the Nelson. There, on what is now known as Seal or Gillam Island, stood a crude new fort; and anchored by the island lay a stout ship—the Bachelor's Delight—cannons pointing from every porthole. Was it the pirate ship seen off Labrador? It took very little parleying to ascertain that the ship was a poacher, commanded by young Ben Gillam of Boston, son of the Company's captain, come here on illicit trade, with John Outlaw and Mike Grimmington, who later became famed seamen, as first and second mates. Radisson took fate by the beard, introduced himself to young Gillam, went on board the ship—not, however, without first seeing that two New Englanders remained as hostages with his three Frenchmen—quaffed drinks, observed that the ship was stout and well manned, advised Ben not to risk his men too far from the fort among the Indians, and laughed with joyous contempt when Ben fired cannon by way of testing the Frenchman's courage.
There was enough to try Radisson's courage the very next day. While gliding leisurely down the current of the Nelson, he saw at a bend in the river the Hudson's Bay Company's ship Prince Rupert, commanded by his quondam enemy, Captain Gillam, sailing straight for the rendezvous already occupied by Ben Gillam. At any cost the two English ships must be kept apart; and at once! Singly, perhaps they could be mastered by the French. Together, they would surely overpower Radisson. It was nightfall. Landing and concealing his comrades, Radisson kindled such a bonfire as Indians used to signal trade. The ship immediately anchored. There was a comical meeting on the Prince Rupert the next morning, at which Radisson represented to the new governor, John Bridgar, who was on the ship with Gillam, that each of his three paddlers was a captain of large ambushed forces. Charity will, perhaps, excuse Radisson for his fabulous tales of a powerful French fort on the Nelson and his disinterested observation that this river had a dangerous current higher up. It appears that Radisson succeeded completely in deceiving the Englishmen. Had they known how helpless he was, with only a few rude 'shacks' on the Hayes river garrisoned by twenty or thirty mutinous sailors, surely they would have clapped him under hatches. But he was permitted to leave the ship, and Bridgar began the preparation of his winter quarters on the shore.
Some days later Radisson came back. His old enemy Gillam was suspicious and ordered him away; but Radisson came again, and this time he brought with him the captain's son, young Ben, dressed as a wood-runner. This was enough to intimidate the old captain, for he knew that if his son was caught poaching on the Bay both father and son would be ruined. One day two of Bridgar's men who had been ranging for game dashed in with the news that they had seen a strange fort up the Nelson a few miles away. This, of course, Bridgar thought, was Radisson's fort, and Captain Gillam did not dare to undeceive him. Then a calamity befell the English winterers. A storm rose and set the tidal ice driving against the Prince Rupert. The ship was jammed and sunk with loss of provisions and fourteen men, including the captain himself. So perished Captain Zachariah Gillam, whom we first met as master of the Nonsuch, the pioneer of all the ships that have since sailed into the Bay in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company.
The wreck of the ship left Bridgar helpless in his rude fort without either food or ammunition, and he at once began to console himself for loss of ship and provisions by deep drinking. Then Radisson knew that he had nothing further to fear from that quarter and he sent food to the starving Englishmen.
Ben Gillam was outwitted through defiantly accepting an invitation to visit the French fort. Gillam visited his rivals to spy on their weakness, and openly taunted them at the banquet table about their helpless condition. When he tried to depart he was coolly told that he was a prisoner, and that, with the aid of any nine Frenchmen Ben chose to pick out from 'the helpless French,' Radisson purposed capturing the poacher's fort and ship. The young captain had fallen into a trap. Radisson had left French hostages at Gillam's fort for his safe return, but these had been instructed to place firearms at convenient places and to post themselves so that they could prevent the sudden closing of the gates. Such precautions proved unnecessary. Radisson walked into the New England poacher's fort and quietly took possession.