Bienville, founder of Louisiana, who took part with his brother Le Moyne d’Iberville, in the famous naval battle for possession of Hudson Bay.
The year 1667-8 was spent in preparations for the voyage. In addition to The Eaglet under Captain Stannard, the ship Nonsuch under Captain Gillam, who had failed to reach the bay from Nova Scotia—was chartered. As far as I could gather from the old documents in Hudson’s Bay House, London, the ships were supplied with provisions and goods for trade by leading merchants, who were given a share in the venture. The cash required was for the seamen’s wages, running from £20 to £30 a year, and for the officer’s pay, £3 a month to the surgeons, £50 a trip to the captains, with a bounty if the venture succeeded. With the bounty, Gillam received £160 for this trip, Stannard, £280. Thomas Gorst, who went as accountant, and Mr. Sheppard as chief mate, were to assume command if anything happened to Radisson and Groseillers. All, who advanced either cash, or goods, or credit for goods, were entered in a stock book as Adventurers for so many pounds. There was as yet no company organized. It was a pure gamble—a speculation based on the word of two penniless French adventurers, and in the spirit of the true gambler, gay were the doings. Captain Gillam facetiously presents the Adventurers with a bill for five shilling for a rat catcher. The gentlemen honor the bill with a smile, order a pipe of canary, three tuns of wine, “a dinner with pullets,” dinners, indeed, galore, at the Three Tunns and the Exchange Tavern and the Sun, at which Prince Rupert and Albermarle and perhaps the King, himself, “make merry like right worthy gentlemen.” Everybody is in rare, good humor, for you must remember Mr. Radisson brought back 600,000 beaver from that Sea of the North, and the value of 600,000 beaver divided among less than a dozen Adventurers would mean a tidy $100,000 of modern money to each man. Then, the gentlemen go down to Gravesend Docks to see the ships off. Each seaman shakes hands heartily with his patron. Then the written commission is delivered to the captains:
“You are to saile with the first wind that presents, keeping company with each other to your place of rendezvous (the old mark set up by Radisson when he went overland to the bay.) You are to saile to such place as Mr. Gooseberry (Groseillers) and Mr. Radisson shall direct to trade with the Indians there, delivering the goods you carry in small parcells no more than fifty pounds worth at a time out of each shipp, the furs in exchange to stowe in each shipp before delivering out any more goods, according to the particular advice of Mr. Gooseberry (Groseillers) and Mr. Radisson.”
Then follows a cryptogramatic order, which would have done credit to the mysterious cipher of pirates on the high seas.
“You are to take notice that the Nampumpeage which you carry with you is part of our joynt cargoes wee having bought it for money for Mr. Gooseberry and Mr. Radisson to be delivered by small quantities with like caution as the other goods.”
No more drinking of high wines, my gentlemen! Strict business now, for it need scarcely be explained the mysterious Nampumpeage was a euphemism for liquor. Fortifications are to be built, minerals sought, the cargo is to be brought home by Groseillers, while Radisson remains to conduct trade, and
“You are to have in your thought the discovery of the passage into the South Sea and to attempt it with the advice and direction of Mr. Gooseberry and Mr. Radisson, they having told us that it is only seven daies paddling or sailing from the River where they intend to trade unto the Stinking Lake (the Great Lakes) and not above seven daies more to the straight wch. leads into that Sea they call the South Sea, and from thence but forty or fifty leagues to the Sea itselfe.”
Exact journals and maps are to be kept. In case the goods cannot be traded, the ships are to carry their cargoes to Newfoundland and the New England plantations, where Mr. Philip Carterett, who is governor of New Jersey, will assist in disposing of the goods.
“Lastly we advise and require you to use the said Mr. Gooseberry and Mr. Radisson with all manner of civility and courtesy and to take care that all your company doe bear a particular respect unto them, they being the persons upon whose credit wee have undertaken this expedition,
Which we beseech Almighty God to prosper.”