All unsuspecting of plots at Quebec and pirate attacks on the Company’s ships, the governors of the different forts on the bay awaited the coming of the ships. From July, it was customary to keep harbor lights out on the sand-bars, and station sentinels day and night to watch for the incoming fleet. Secret codes of signals had been left the year before with the forts. If the incoming ships did not display these signals, the sentinels were ordered to cut the harbor buoys, put out the lights, and give the alarm. If the signals were correct, cannon roared a welcome, flags were run up, and pilots went out in small boats to guide the ships in through sand-bars and bowlder reefs.
At Albany, Governor Sargeant, whose wife and family were now with him at the fort—had ordered a sort of lookout, or crow’s-nest, built of scaffolding, on a hill above the fort. As far as known, not a single Englishman had up to this time penetrated the wilds west of the bay. One Robert Sanford had been ordered this very year to “go up into the country,” but fear of French bush-rovers made him report that such a course was very unsafe. It would be wiser and safer for the Company to give handsome presents to the Indian chiefs. This would induce them to bring their tribes down to the bay. So the sentinel at Albany could hardly believe his senses one morning when from the eerie height of his lookout he espied three men—three white men, steering a canoe down the swift, tumultuous current of the rain-swollen river. They were coming not from the sea, but from the Upcountry. This was a contingency the cutting of harbor buoys had not provided against. The astounded sentinel ran to Sargeant with the alarm. Cannon were manned and Governor Sargeant took his stand in the gate of the palisaded walls.
Beaching their canoe, the three white men marched jauntily up to the governor. The shaggy eyes of the bluff old governor took in the fact that the newcomers were French—Frenchmen dressed as bush-lopers, but with the manners of gentlemen, introducing themselves with the debonair gayety of their race, Monsieur Péré, Monsieur Coultier de Comporté and a third, whose name is lost to the records. Old Governor Sargeant scratched his burly beard. England and France were at peace, very much at peace when France had sent Radisson back; and he must treat the visitors with courtesy; but what were gentlemen doing dressed as bush-rovers? Hunting—taking their pleasure where they found it—knights of the wildwoods—says my good friend, Jan Péré, doffing his fur capote with a bow. Governor Sargeant hails good friend Péré into the fort, to a table loaded with game and good wine and the hospitality of white men lonely for companionship as a sail at sea. The wine passes freely and stories pass freely, stories of the hunt and the voyage and of Monsieur Radisson and his friends, whom the Governor expects back this year—soon, very soon, any day now the ships may come.
But at base, every Hudson’s Bay Company man is a trader. Governor Sargeant evincing no zealous desire to extend his hospitality longer, Monsieur Péré tactfully evinces no desire to stay. The gay adventurers aver they are going to coast along the shore—that alkali shore between the main coast of cedar swamps and the outer reef of bowlders—where good sport among feathered game is to be expected. Once they are out of sight from Albany, the three Frenchmen rest on their paddles and confer. They had not counted on leaving quite so soon. Still gay as schoolboys on an escapade, that night as they sleep on shore under the stars, they take good care to leave their canoe so that the high tide carries it out to sea. What is to be done now—a thousand miles by swamp from the nearest French fort? Presto—go back to the English fort, of course; and back they trudge to Albany with their specious farce of misadventure.
Meanwhile, Outlaw on The Success, had arrived at Albany with the tale of Lamartiniére’s raid and the loss of The Perpetuana. Before Monsieur Jan Péré can feign astonishment—he is dumfounded at the news, is Monsieur Péré—Governor Sargeant has clapped irons on his wrists and irons on his feet. The fair-tongued spy is cast manacled into the bastion that served as prison at Albany, and his two comrades are transported across to Charlton Island to earn their living hunting till they have learned that no one may tamper with the fur trade of the English adventurers. What welcome Chouart Groseillers and his French comrades received—is not told in Hudson’s Bay annals. They go north to Nelson for the next four years, then drop from the pay lists of the Company, and reappear as fur traders of New France. It would hardly be stretching historic fact to infer that these daring French youths took to the tall timbers.
Over on Charlton Island, Péré’s comrades hunted as to the wildwoods born; hunted so diligently that by September they had store enough of food to stock them for the winter. By September the boats that met at Charlton Island had sailed. No one was left to watch the Frenchmen. They hastily constructed for themselves a large canoe, loaded it with their provisions, set out under cover of night and reached the south shore of James Bay, keeping well away from Moose and Rupert River. Then they paddled for life upstream toward New France. By October, ice formed, cutting the canoe. They killed a moose, cured the buckskin above punk smoke, made themselves snowshoes and marched overland seven hundred miles to the French fort at Michilimackinac. Word ran like wildfire from Lake Superior to Quebec—Jan Péré was held in prison at Albany. These were the rumors Mike Grimmington and Richard Smithsend heard from their prison cells under Château St. Louis. If these two spies can march overland in midwinter, cannot a band of bush-rovers march overland to the rescue of Péré? France and England are at peace; but Albany holds Péré in prison, and Quebec holds Mike Grimmington and Smithsend in the cellar of the Château St. Louis.
Up on the bay, old Sargeant was puzzled what to do with Péré. All told, there were only eighty-nine men on Hudson Bay at this time. It was decided that Outlaw should remain for the winter with Sargeant, but take Péré up to Captains Bond and Lucas at Nelson to be shipped home to England, where the directors could decide on his fate. On October 27, Bond and Lucas arrived in London, and on October 29, the minutes of the Company report “one Monsieur Jan Péré sent home by Governor Sargeant as a French spy.” The full report of The Perpetuana’s loss was laid before the Company on the 30th. On November 4, Monsieur Péré is examined by a committee. Within a week the suave spy suffers such a change of heart, he applies on November 11 for the privilege of joining the Company. Before the Company have given answer to that request, comes a letter from Captain Hume dated December 13, Rochelle, France, giving a full account of the wreck of The Perpetuana, the indignities suffered at Quebec, stating that he is in a dungeon awaiting the Company’s ransom. Captain Hume is ordered to pay what ransom is necessary and come to England at once, but it is manifest that the French spy, Jan Péré, must be held for the safety of the other English prisoners at Quebec. The Company lodges a suit of £5,000 damages against him, which will keep Péré in gaol till he can find bail, and when he sends word to know the reason for such outrage, the minutes of the Company glibly put on record “that he hath damnified the company very considerably.” Unofficially, he is told that the safety of his life depends on the safety of those English prisoners held at Quebec. In January arrives Captain Hume, putting on record his affidavit of the wreck of The Perpetuana. In February, 1686, comes that letter from Smithsend which he smuggled out of his prison in Quebec, “ye contents to be kept private and secret,” warning the Company that raiders are leaving Canada overland for the bay. By March, Jan Péré is on his knees to join the Company. The Company lets him stay on his knees in prison. All is bustle at Hudson’s Bay House fitting out frigates for the next summer. Eighteen extra men are to be sent to Albany, twelve to Moose, six to Rupert. Monsieur Radisson is instructed to inspect the large guns sent over from Holland to be sent out to the bay. Monsieur Radisson advises the Company to fortify Nelson especially strongly, for hence come the best furs.
The Company is determined to be ready for the raid, but the straits will not be clear of ice before July.
Notes on Chapter XI.—The contents of this chapter are taken from the Minutes of the Company, Hudson’s Bay House. All French records state that Hume was killed in the loss of The Perpetuana. As I have his letter from Rochelle, dated December, 1685, this is a mistake. He reached England, January, 1686, and his affidavit is in Hudson’s Bay House. Captain Bond was severely censured by the Company for deserting The Perpetuana. If he had not fled, the French would without a doubt have dispatched Radisson on the spot. Some of the men of The Perpetuana spent two years imprisoned in Quebec. Up to this time, by wreck and raid, including sloops as well as frigates—the Company had lost thirteen vessels. Record of Péré is found also in French state documents of this date. Smithsend escaped to England, February 14, 1686.