Another statement employed to strengthen the French claim to sovereignty was, that Father Dablon and Sieur de Valiere were ordered in 1661 to proceed to the country about Hudson's Bay, and that they accordingly went thither. All accounts available to the historian agree that the worthy father never reached the Bay.
La Couture's mythical voyage.
Another assertion equally long-lived and equally ill-founded, was to the effect that one Sieur La Couture, with five men, proceeded overland to the Bay, and there took possession of it in the King's name. There is no account of this voyage in Charlevoix, or in the "Relations des Jesuites," or in the memoir furnished by M. de Callieres to the Marquis de Denonville. This memoir, which was penned in 1685, or twenty-one years after the time of which it treated, set forth that La Couture made the journey for purposes of discovery. Under the circumstances, particularly owing to the strong necessity under which the French were placed to find some shadow of right for their pretensions, M. de Callieres' memoir has been declared untrustworthy by competent authorities.
English Map of 1782.
In 1663, Sieur Duquet, the King's Attorney for Quebec, and Jean L'Anglois, a Canadian colonist, are said to have gone to Hudson's Bay by order of Sieur D'Argenson, and to have renewed possession by setting up the King's arms there a second time. Such an order could hardly have been given by D'Argenson, because he had left Canada on September 16th, 1671, two years before this pretended order was given to Sieur Duquet.
French falsehoods and fallacies.
It has been attempted to explain the silence of the "Relations of the Jesuits" concerning Bourdon's voyage, by asserting that they were naturally anxious that members of their own society should be the pioneers in discovery, and that therefore many important discoveries were never brought to light in their relations because they were not made by Jesuits. It is enough to say that such an argument cannot apply to the voyage of Dablon. He was a Jesuit, a man in whom the interests of the society were centred, and if a voyage had been made by him, no doubt a great deal of prominence would have been given to it. On the contrary, in the third volume of the "Jesuit Relations," 1662, we find this Jesuit, Father Dablon, describing an unsuccessful voyage that he made. There can be no doubt that he attempted a voyage. A portion of this relation is written by himself, and he calls it, "Journal du Premier Voyage Fait Vers la Mer du Nord." The first portion of it is most important and conclusive, as showing that De Callieres, in his memoir to M. De Seignely, twenty-one years afterwards, must have been speaking from hearsay, and without any authentic documents on which to base his assertions. Dablon says that the highest point which he did reach was Nekauba, a hundred leagues from Tadoussac, and that subsequently he returned; and this is from a report of this journey written by himself. Some have attempted to raise a doubt as to the identity of the Dablon in De Callieres' memoir, with the Dablon of the "Relations des Jesuites." But at the end of one of the volumes is a complete list of all the Jesuits, pioneers both of the faith and in the way of discovery, and there is only one Dablon mentioned. Another inaccuracy of this memoir is as to the trip of Duquet, under an order said to have been given by Sieur D'Argenson. There can be no doubt that at the time this pretended order was given, D'Argenson had left Canada.
On the whole it may be as well for the reader to dismiss the French pretensions. They are no longer of interest, save to the hair-splitting student of the country's annals: but in their day they gave rise to a wilderness of controversy, through which we in the twentieth century may yet grope vainly for the light. For all practical purposes the question of priority was settled forever by the Ontario Boundary Commission of 1884. Let us turn rather to behold to what account the Honourable Adventurers turned their new property.