The place where Radisson lived shows, too, that he was no back-stairs sycophant hanging on the favor of the great, no beggarly renegade hungry for the crumbs that fell from the tables of those merchant princes. It proves Radisson a front-door acquaintance of the Gentlemen Adventurers. Sir Christopher Wren, the famous architect who was a share-holder in the Hudson’s Bay Company at this time, thought himself well paid at £200 a year for superintending the building of St. Paul’s. Radisson’s agreement on returning to the Adventurers from France, was for a salary of £50 a year, paid quarterly, £50 paid yearly and dividends—running as high as 50 per cent.—on £200 of stock—making in all, practically the same income as a man of Wren’s standing.
Second-rate warehouses and dingy business offices have replaced the mansions of the great merchants on Seething Lane, but the two old churches stand the same as in the days of Radisson, with the massive weather-stained stone work uncouth, as if built by the Saxons, inner pillars and pointed arches showing the work of the Normans. Both have an antique flavor as of old wine. The Past seems to reach forward and touch you tangibly from the moldering brass plates on the walls, and the flagstone of the aisles so very old the chiseled names of the dead below are peeling off like paper. The great merchant princes—the Colletons, the Kirkes, the Robinsons, Radisson’s friends—lie in effigy around the church above their graves. It was to St. Olave’s across the way, Pepys used to come to hear Hawkins, the great Oxford scholar, also one of the Adventurers—preach; and a tablet tells where the body of Pepys’ gay wife lies. From the walls, a memorial tablet to Pepys, himself, smiles down in beplumed hat and curled periwig and velvet cloak, perhaps that very cloak made in imitation of the one worn in Hyde Park by the King and of which he was—as he writes—“so mighty proud.” The roar of a world’s traffic beats against the tranquil walls of the little church; but where sleeps Radisson, the Catholic and alien, in this Babylon of hurrying feet? His friends and his neighbors lie here, but the gravestones give no clue of him. Pepys, the annalist of the age, with his gossip of court and his fair wife and his fine clothes—thought Radisson’s voyages interesting enough as a curio but never seems to have dreamed that the countries Radisson discovered would become a dominant factor in the world’s progress when that royal house on whose breath Pepys hung for favor as for life, lay rotting in a shameful oblivion. If the dead could dream where they lie forgotten, could Radisson believe his own dream—that the seas of the world are freighted with the wealth of the countries he discovered; that “the country so pleasant, so beautiful ... so fruitful ... so plentiful of all things”—as he described the Great Northwest when he first saw it—is now peopled by a race that all the nations of Europe woo; that the hope of the empire, which ignored him when he lived, is now centered on “that fair and fruitful and pleasant land” which he discovered?
For ten years Radisson continued to go to the bay, Esquire Young acting as his attorney to draw the allowance of £100 a year and the dividends on £200 stock for Radisson’s wife, Mary Kirke. The minutes contain accounts of wine presented to Mr. Radisson, of furs sent home as a gift to Mistress Radisson, of heavy guns bought for the forts on the advice of Mr. Radisson, of a fancy pistol delivered to Monsieur Radisson. Then a change fell.
The Stuarts between vice and folly had danced themselves off the throne. The courtiers, who were Adventurers, scattered like straws before the wind. The names of the shareholders changed. Of Radisson’s old friends, only Esquire Young remained. Besides, Iberville was now campaigning on the bay, sweeping the English as dust before a broom. Dividends stopped. The Company became embarrassed. By motion of the shareholders, Radisson’s pension was cut from £100 to £50 a year. In vain Esquire Young and Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, now governor of the Company, urged Radisson’s claims. The new shareholders did not know his name.
These were dark days for the old pathfinder. He must have been compelled to move from Seething Lane, for a petition describes him as in the Parish of St. James “in a low and mean condition” in great want and mental distress lest his family should be driven to the poorhouse. It was at this period three papers were put on file that forever place beyond dispute the main facts of his life. He filed a suit in Chancery against the Company for a resumption of his full salary pending the discontinuance of dividends. He petitioned Parliament to make the continuance of the Company’s charter dependent on recognition of his rights as having laid the foundations of the Company. And he took an oath regarding the main episodes of his life to be used in the treaty of peace with France. A fighter he was to the end, though haunted by that terrible Fear of Want which undermined his courage as no Phantom Fright ever shook him in the wilderness. No doubt he felt himself growing old, nearly seventy now with four children to support and naught between them and destitution but the paltry payment of £12 10s a quarter.
Again the wheel of fortune turned. Radisson won his suit against the Company. His income of £100 was resumed and arrears of £150 paid. Also, in the treaty pending with France, his evidence was absolutely requisite to establish what the boundaries ought to be between Canada and Hudson Bay; so the Adventurers became suddenly very courteous, very suave, very considerate of the old man they had kept standing outside their office door; and the committee of August 17, 1697, bade “the secretary take coach and fetch Mr. Radisson who may be very useful at this time as to affairs between the French and the Company.” The old war horse was once more in harness. In addition to his salary, gratuities of £10 and £8 and £20 “for reliable services” are found in the minutes. Regularly his £50 were paid to him at the end of each year. Regularly, the £12 10s were paid each quarter to March 29, 1710. When the next quarter came round, this entry is recorded in the minute book:
“Att A Comitte the 12th July 1710—
The Sec is ordered to pay Mr. Radisson’s widow as charity the sum of six pounds.”
Between the end of March and the beginning of July, the old pathfinder had set forth on his last voyage.
But I think the saddest record of all is the one that comes nineteen years later: