Colbert and the Company.
"After reflecting," he wrote to Colbert, "on all the nations that might have penetrated as far north as that, I can only fall back on the English, who, under the conduct of one named Groseilliers, in former times an inhabitant of Canada, might possibly have attempted that navigation, of itself not much known and not less dangerous. I design to send by land some men of resolution to invite the Kilistinons,[14] who are in great numbers in the vicinity of that Bay, to come down to see us as the Ottawas do, in order that we may have the first handling of what the savages bring us, who, acting as retail dealers between ourselves and those natives (i.e., the Kilistinons), make us pay for this roundabout way of three or four hundred leagues."
The rivalry of French and English north of the St. Lawrence had begun. With that rivalry began also from this moment that long series of disputes concerning the sovereignty of the whole northern territories, which has endured down to our own generation.
A much vexed controversy.
Few historical themes have ever been argued at greater length or more minutely than this—the priority of discovery, occupation, and active assumption of sovereignty over those lands surrounding Hudson's Bay, which for two centuries were to be held and ruled by the Hudson's Bay Company. The wisest jurists, the shrewdest intellects, the most painstaking students were destined to employ themselves for over a century in seeking to establish by historical evidence, by tradition and by deduction, the "rights" of the English or of the French to those regions.
A great deal of importance has been attached to the fact that in 1627 a charter had been granted by Lewis XIII. to a number of adventurers sent to discover new lands to the north of the River of St. Lawrence. The clause of the charter reads as follows:—"Le fort et habitation de Quebec, avec tout le pays de la Nouvelle France dite Canada, tant le long des Cotes depuis la Floride que les predecesseurs Rois de Sa Majeste ont fait habiter en rangeant les Cotes de la Mer jusqu'au Cercle Artique pour latitude, et de longitude depuis l'Ile de Terreneuve tirant a l'ouest au Grand Lac dit la Mer douce et au dela que de dans les terres, et le long des Rivieres qui y passant et se dechargent dans le fleuve dit St. Laurent, ou autrement la grande Riviere du Canada, et dans tous les autres fleuves qui se portent a la mer." But most writers have omitted to verify the fact that in this charter to the French Company, the only portions of land granted to the French Company are the lands or portions of lands which had already been occupied by the Kings of France, and the object of the charter was simply to give them an exclusive right of trade therein. Thus it was clearly indicated that the charter did not go further than the land occupied by the predecessors of Lewis XIV.
"New France was then understood to include the whole region of Hudson's Bay, as the maps and histories of the time, English and French, abundantly prove." This is a broad assertion, which is not supported by the early discoverers nor by the historians of that time. Charlevoix in his history described New France as being an exceedingly limited territory. There is in l'Escarbot a description which shows that at that time the whole territory known as New France extended but a few miles on each side of the St. Lawrence. Charlevoix says regretfully at that time that the giving up of this territory did not amount to much, as New France was circumscribed by very narrow limits on either side of the St Lawrence.
When an examination is made into the facts of the voyages and expeditions alleged to have been undertaken by the French prior to 1672, it is difficult to arrive at any but a certain conclusion—that the French claims had no foundation in fact.
It was then asserted, and long afterwards repeated, that Jean Bourdon, the Attorney-General in 1656, explored the entire coast of Labrador and entered Hudson's Bay. For this assertion one is unable to find any historical support; certainly no record of any kind exists of such a voyage. There is a record in 1655, it is true, that Sieur Bourdon, then Attorney-General, was authorized to make a discovery of Mer du Nord; and in order to comply with that arrét of the Sovereign Council at Quebec, he actually made an attempt at such discovery. Bourdon left Quebec on May 2nd, 1657, and an entry in the records proves his return on August 11th of the same year. It is manifestly impossible that such a voyage could have been accomplished between these dates. But a reference to this business in the Jesuit relations of the succeeding year is sufficiently convincing.[15]
It is there recorded that on the "11th of August, there appeared the barque of M. Bourdon, which having descended the Grand River on the north side, sailed as far as the 55th degree, where it encountered a great bank of ice, which caused it to return, having lost two Hurons that it had taken as guides. The Esquimaux savages of the north massacred them and wounded a Frenchman with three arrows and one cut with a knife."