The Hampshire, under Captain Fletcher, with fifty-two guns and sixty fighting men, first came up within range and sent two roaring cannonades that mowed the masts and wheel-house from the Pelican down to bare decks. At the same time Grimmington's Dering and Smithsend's Hudson's Bay circled to the other side of the French ship and poured forth a pepper of musketry.
D'Iberville shouted orders to the gunners to fire straight into the Hampshire's hull; sharpshooters were to rake the decks of the two off-standing English ships, and the Indians were to stand ready to board. Two hours passed in sidling and shifting; then the death grapple began. Ninety dead and wounded Frenchmen rolled on the Pelican's blood-stained decks. The fallen sails were blazing. The mast poles were splintered. Railings went smashing into the sea. The bridge crumbled. The Pelican's prow had been shop away. D'Iberville was still shouting to his gunners to fire low, when suddenly the Hampshire ceased firing and tilted. D'Iberville had barely time to unlock the Pelican from the death grapple, when the English frigate lurched and, amid hiss and roar of flame in a wild sea, sank like a stone, engulfing her panic-stricken crew almost before the French could realize what had happened. Smithsend at once surrendered the Hudson's Bay, and Mike Grimmington fled for Nelson on the Dering.
A fierce hurricane now rose and the English garrison at Nelson had one hope left—that the wild storm might wreck d'Iberville's ship and its absent convoys. Smashing billows and ice completed the wreck of the Pelican; nevertheless the French commander succeeded in landing his men. When the storm cleared, his other ships came limping to his aid. Nelson stood back four miles from the sea, but by September 11 the French had their cannon placed under the walls. A messenger was sent to demand surrender, and he was conveyed with bandaged eyes into the fort. Grimmington,[3] Smithsend, Bailey, Kelsey—all were for holding out; but d'Iberville's brother, Serigny, came in under flag of truce and bade them think well what would happen if the hundred Indians were turned loose on the fort. Finally the English surrendered and marched out with the honours of war. Grimmington sailed for England with as many of the refugees as his ship, the Dering, could convey. The rest, led by Bailey and Smithsend, marched overland south to the fort at Albany.
[3] Grimmington, with the Dering, had reached the fort in safety. Smithsend's captive ship, the Hudson's Bay, had been wrecked with the Pelican, but he himself had escaped to the fort.
The loss of Nelson fell heavily on the Hudson's Bay Company. Their ships were not paid for; dividends stopped; stock dropped in value. But still they borrowed money to pay £20 each to the sailors. The Treaty of Ryswick, which halted the war with France, provided that possession on the Bay should remain as at the time of the treaty, and England held only Albany.
CHAPTER VIII
EXPANSION AND EXPLORATION
When the House of Orange came to the throne, it was deemed necessary that the Company's monopoly, originally granted by the Stuarts, should be confirmed. Nearly all the old shareholders, who had been friends of the Stuarts, sold out, and in 1697, the year of the disaster related in the last chapter, the Company applied for an extension of its royal charter by act of parliament. The fur buyers of London opposed the application on the grounds that: