A few days later Bridgar, who had learned too late that the fort on the Nelson was not French but English, marched his men up-stream to contrive a junction with young Gillam's forces. When the Hudson's Bay men knocked on the gate of the New Englanders' fort for admission, the sentinel opened without question. The gates clapped shut with a slamming of bolts, and the Englishmen found themselves quietly and bloodlessly captured by the intrepid Radisson.
Meanwhile Groseilliers and his son, Jean Chouart, had been plying a thriving trade. To be sure, the ice jam of spring in the Hayes river had made Radisson's two cockle-shell craft look more like staved-in barrels than merchant ships. But in the spring, when the Assiniboines and Crees came riding down the river flood in vast brigades of birch canoes laden to the waterline with peltry, the Frenchmen had in store goods to barter with them and carried on a profitable trade.
Radisson now had more prisoners than he could conveniently carry to Quebec. Rigging up the remnants of his rickety ships for a convoy, he placed in them the majority of the Hudson's Bay Company and New England crews and sent them south to Rupert and Moose. Taking possession of Ben Gillam's ship, the Bachelor's Delight, he loaded it with a cargo of precious furs, and set out for Quebec with Bridgar and young Gillam as prisoners. Jean Chouart and a dozen Frenchmen remained on the Hayes river to trade. Twenty miles out from port, Bridgar and young Gillam were caught conspiring to cut the throats of the Frenchmen, and henceforth both Englishmen were kept under lock and key in their cabins.
But once again Radisson had to encounter the governing bodies of Quebec. The authorities of New France were enraged when they learned that La Chesnaye had sent an expedition to the North Sea. In the meantime Frontenac had been replaced by another governor, La Barre. Tax collectors beset the ships like rats long before Quebec was sighted, and practically confiscated the cargo in fines and charges. La Barre no doubt supposed that the treaty of peace existing between England and France gave him an excuse for seizing the cargo of furs. At all events he ordered Radisson and Groseilliers to report at once to Colbert in France. He restored the Bachelor's Delight forthwith to Ben Gillam and gave him full clearance papers. He released Bridgar, the Company's trader. His stroke of statesmanship left the two French explorers literally beggared, and when they reached Paris in January 1684 Colbert was dead.
But, though Ben Gillam secured his release from the governor of New France, he did not escape the long hand of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had written from London to Mr Randolph of the American Plantations to effect the arrest of Ben Gillam at any cost. At the same time they sent Randolph a £10 present of silver plate. On reaching Boston, Ben Gillam was duly arrested. He afterwards became a pirate, and his ultimate fate was involved with that of the famous Captain Kidd. Both were sent to England to be tried for crimes on the high seas; and it is supposed that, like Kidd, Ben suffered execution. Bridgar, suddenly freed from all danger, as suddenly regained a sense of his own importance. He made drafts on the Company and set out from Quebec in such state as befitted his dignity, with secretary and interpreter and valet. He rode hurriedly along the old post-road between Boston and New York, filling the countryside with the story of his adventures. Then he took ship to England; but there his valour suffered a sudden chill. The Company had refused to honour his bills. They repudiated his drafts, reprimanded him severely, and suspended him from service for several years. Mike Grimmington and Outlaw and the others, who had been shipped down from Nelson to Moose and Rupert, promptly took passage home to England on the Company's yearly ship. By the time Radisson and Groseilliers reached Paris, Europe was ringing with the outrage involved in their exploits.
Radisson found small comfort in Paris. Possibly Colbert's death had deprived him of a sympathetic protector, and the French court was as reluctant now to interfere with the actions of the colonial authorities at Quebec as it had been twenty years before. After petitioning vainly for consideration, Groseilliers seems to have given up the contest and retired for the remainder of his life to a small patrimony near Three Rivers. Not so Radisson! He was bound to the Old World by marriage; and now international complications came to bind him yet more completely. 'It is impossible,' wrote Louis XIV to Governor La Barre, 'to imagine what you mean by releasing Gillam's boat and relinquishing claim to the North Sea,' At the same time Louis was in a quandary. He would not relinquish the French claim to the North Sea; but he dared not risk a rupture of his secret treaty with England by openly countenancing Radisson's exploit on the Nelson river. Radisson was secretly ordered to go back to the Bay and, unofficially, in his private capacity, restore the Nelson river fur posts to the Hudson's Bay Company. The words of the order in part are: 'To put an end to the differences between the two Nations touching the settlements made by Messrs Groseilliers and Radisson on Hudson's Bay, the said Groseilliers and Radisson shall return and withdraw the French with all effects belonging to them and shall restore to the English Company the Habitation by them settled to be enjoyed by the English without molestation.'
At the very same time that these royal orders sent Radisson to restore the forts, a privateering frigate was dispatched from France to Quebec with equally secret orders to attack and sink English vessels on the Bay. The 'Adventurers of England,' too, were involved in a game of international duplicity. While Mr Young, the fashionable man about town, wrote letters imploring Radisson to come back to England, Sir James Hayes bombarded the French court with demands that the Frenchman be punished. 'I am confirmed,' he wrote, 'in our worst fears. M. Radisson, who was at the head of the action at Port Nelson, is arrived in France the 8th of this month and is in all post haste to undermine us on the Bay. Nothing can mend but to cause ye French King to have exemplary justice done on ye said Radisson.'
On May 10, 1684, Radisson arrived in London. He was met by Mr Young and Sir James Hayes and welcomed and forthwith carried to Windsor, where he took the oath of fidelity as a British subject. The Company, sunk a month before in the depths of despair, were transported with joy and generous rejoicings, and the Governing Committee voted Mr Young thanks for bringing Mr Radisson from France. Two days after Radisson's arrival, Sir James Hayes and Mr Young reported to the Company that Mr Radisson had tendered his services to the Company, that they 'have presented him to our Governor, His Royal Highness, who was pleased to advise he should again be received in service, under wage of £50 per annum and benefit of dividends on £200 capital stock during life, to receive £25 to set him out for this present expedition.' On May 21 Sir James Hayes reported that he had presented Mr Radisson with 'a silver tankard, charged to the Company at £10 14. 0.'
Radisson returned to the Bay on the Happy Return, sailed by Captain Bond. On the same ship went the new governor, William Phipps, who had been appointed to succeed Bridgar, and a boy named Henry Kelsey, of whom we shall hear more later. Outlaw, who had been with Ben Gillam, had a commission for the Company and sailed the Success. His mate was Mike Grimmington, also of the old poacher crew. There was a sloop, too, the Adventure—Captain Geyer—for inland waters.
When Radisson arrived at the Hayes river and told Jean Chouart—who, as we have seen, had been left in charge of the French trade there—of the looting of the fur cargoes at Quebec and of the order from the French king to transfer everything to the English, the young Frenchman's rage may be imagined. He had risked his entire fortune on the expedition from Quebec; but what account did this back-stairs trick of courtiers take of his ruin? Radisson told him that he had been commissioned to offer him £100 a year for service under the English, and £50 each to his underling traders. Jean listened in sullen silence. The furs gathered by the Frenchmen were transferred to the holds of the English vessels, but Jean and his companions evinced no eagerness to go aboard for England. On September 4, just as the sailors were heaving up anchors to the sing-song of a running chant, Phipps, the governor, summoned the French to a final council on board the Happy Return. Young Jean looked out through the ports of the captain's cabin. The sea was slipping past. The Happy Return had set sail. The Frenchmen were trapped and were being carried to England. In an instant, hands were on swords and the ship was in an uproar. Radisson besought his countrymen to bethink themselves before striking. What could five men do against an armed English crew? Once in England, they could listen to what the Company had to offer: meanwhile they were suffering no harm. The Frenchmen sullenly put back their swords. The boat reached Portsmouth in the last week of October. Radisson took horse and rode furiously for London.