The ultimate fate of Ben Gillam I found in the Shaftesbury collection of papers bearing on Captain Kidd. His name is variously given as “William” and “James,” but I think there can be little doubt of his identity from several coincidences. In the first place, the Gillam whom Mr. Randolph arrested for piracy (and was given a present by the Company for so doing) was the Gillaum later arrested in connection with Captain Kidd. Also Gillam’s boat was known under a variety of names—Bachellors’ Delight, Prudent Sarah, and the master of The Prudent Sarah was arrested in connection with Captain Kidd. The minutes of the Hudson’s Bay Company show that the Boston owners of Gillam’s boat sued for the loss of this trip against the Hudson’s Bay Company, and lost their suit. This was the first test of the legality of the Hudson’s Bay Company monopoly, and the courts upheld it.
Radisson’s life as given in Pathfinders of the West and Heralds of Empire affords fuller details of the fray from the Frenchman’s point of view. It is remarkable how slightly his record differs from the account as contained in the official affidavits.
As to the distance of Charlton Island from the main coast—it puzzled me how the sailing directions for the ships that were to rendezvous there gave the distance of the island from the main coast as anything from twenty to eighty miles. The explanation is the point on the south coast that is considered.
CHAPTER X
1683-1685
THE ADVENTURERS FURIOUS AT RADISSON, FIND IT CHEAPER TO HAVE HIM AS FRIEND THAN ENEMY AND INVITE HIM BACK—THE REAL REASON WHY RADISSON RETURNED—THE TREACHERY OF STATECRAFT—YOUNG CHOUART OUTRAGED, NURSES HIS WRATH AND THERE GAILY COMES ON THE SCENE MONSIEUR PÉRÉ—SCOUT AND SPY
The Hudson’s Bay Adventurers were dazed by the sudden eruption of Radisson at Port Nelson. Their traders had gone there often enough to have learned that the finest furs came from the farthest North. Here was a region six hundred miles distant from the French bush-lopers, who came overland from the St. Lawrence. Here were the best furs and the most numerous tribes of Indian hunters. Radisson had found Port Nelson for them. Now he had snatched the rich prize from their hands.
Bad news travels fast. Those refugees, who had been shipped by the French to the Company’s posts at the south of the bay, reached the ships’ rendezvous at Charlton Island in time to return to England by the home-bound vessels of 1683. Before Radisson had arrived in France, Outlaw and the other refugees had come to London. The embassies of France and England rang with what was called “the Radisson outrage.” John Outlaw, quondam captain for Ben Gillam, the poacher, took oath in London, on November 23, of all that Radisson had done to injure the English, and he swore that Groseillers had showed a commission from the Government of France for the raid. Calvert, Braddon, Phineas and those seamen, who had gone up Nelson River with Bridgar—gave similar evidence, and when Bridgar, himself, came by way of New England, the clamor rose to such heights it threatened to upset the friendly treaty between England and France. Lord Preston, England’s envoy to Paris, was besieged with memorials against Radisson for the French Government.
“I am confirmed in our worst fears by the news I have lately received,” wrote Sir James Hayes of the Company, “Monsieur Radisson, who was at the head of the action at Port Nelson is arrived in France the 8th of this month (December, 1683) in a man-of-war from Canada and is in all posthaste for Paris to induce the ministry to undermine us on Hudson’s Bay. Nothing can mend at this time but to get His Majesty’s order through my Lord Preston instantly to cause ye French King to have exemplary justice done upon ye said Radisson.”