On rowed the gig-boat toward the imperturbable figure on the shore. Some paces out, the boat grated bottom and stuck in the sand. A sailor had jumped to mid-waist in water to drag the craft in, when the stolid figure on the sand suddenly came to life. With a leap, leveled musket covering the incoming boat, the man had bounded to the water’s edge and in purest English shouted—“Halt!”
“We are Hudson’s Bay Company men,” protested Bridgar standing up.
“But I,” answered the figure, “am Radisson, and I hold possession of all this region for France.”
If the Frenchman had been Vesuvius suddenly erupted under some idling tourists, or if a ghost arisen from the ground, the English could not have been more astonished. They had thought they had finished with the troublesome Frenchman, and behold him, here, in possession with a musket leveled at their heads and three men commanding ambushed forces behind.
With a show of hollow courage, Bridgar asked permission to land and salute the commander of the French forces. One can guess with what love, they fell on each other’s necks. Radisson’s courage rose recklessly as if the danger had been so much wine. These three men were his officers, he said. His fort was some distance away. He had two ships but expected more. How many men had he? Ah, there his English failed, but his broken French conveyed the impression of forces that could wipe the English out of existence. Gillam and Bridgar, who could not speak one word of French, looked glum enough. To test this brave show of valor, they invited him on board The Prince Rupert to dine. Radisson accepted with an alacrity that disarmed suspicion, but he took the precaution of inviting two English sailors to remain on shore with his French followers. What yarns were spun over the mess room table of The Prince Rupert that day! Radisson enquired for all his own friends of London, and Bridgar in turn heard what Radisson had been doing in the French navy all these eight years. Who knew Port Nelson better than Radisson? They asked him about the current of the river. He advised them to penetrate no farther for fear of a clash with the French forces and to forbid their men marauding inland in order to avoid trouble with the Indians.
Copy of Robson’s drawing of York Harbor. The positions of Radisson’s fort, Ben Gillam’s Island and the H. B. C. ship are written in.
Could any one guess that the astute Frenchman, boasting of ships and so recklessly quaffing toasts at the table of his enemies—was defenseless and powerless in their hands? His fort was not on this river but on the Hayes across the swamp to the south—a miserable collection of log shacks with turf roofs, garrisoned by a mere handful of mutinous sailors. His fear was not that the English would clash with the French forces, but that they would learn how weak he was. And another discovery added the desperation of recklessness to the game. Radisson and Groseillers had come to the bay but a month before on two miserable ships with twenty-seven men. Musketry firing had warned Radisson of some one else at Port Nelson. Twenty-six miles up Nelson River on Gillam Island, he had discovered to his amazement, poachers who were old acquaintances—Ben Gillam, son of the Company’s captain, with John Outlaw, come in The Bachellors’ Delight from Boston, on June 21, to poach on the Company’s fur preserve. It was while canoeing down stream from the discovery of the poachers that Radisson ran full-tilt into the Company’s ship. Here, then, was a pretty dilemma—two English ships on the same river not twenty miles apart, the French south across the swamp not a week’s journey away. Radisson was trapped, if they had but known. His only chance was to keep The Prince Rupert and The Bachellors’ Delight apart, and to master them singly.
If Bridgar had realized Radisson’s plight, the Frenchman would have been clapped under hatches in a twinkle, but he was allowed to leave The Prince Rupert. Bridgar beached his ships on the flats and prepared to build winter quarters. Ten days later, Radisson dropped in again, “to drink health,” as he suavely explained, introducing common sailors as officers and firing off muskets to each cup quaffed, to learn whether the Company kept soldiers “on guard in case of a surprise.” Governor Bridgar was too far gone in liquor to notice the trick, but Captain Gillam rushed up the decks of The Prince Rupert with orders for the French to begone. Gillam and Radisson had been enemies from the first. Gillam was suspicious. Therefore, it behooved Radisson to play deeper. The next time he came to the ship he was accompanied by the Captain’s son, Ben, the poacher, dressed as a bushranger. There was reason enough now for the old captain to keep his crew from going farther up the river. If Ben Gillam were discovered in illicit trade, it meant ruin to both father and son. When some of his crew remarked the resemblance of the supposed bushranger to the absent son, Captain Gillam went cold with fright.
Falsity, intrigue, danger, were in the very air. It lacked but the spark to cause the explosion; and chance supplied the spark.