Such an unexpected reception made the remainder retire with great precipitation; and the Master of the sloop hearing the guns, made the best of his way up to the Fort; but some of the French who lay concealed under the banks of the river killed him, and all the boat's crew.
The French retired from this place with reluctance; for some of them were heard shooting in the neighbourhood of the Fort ten days after they were repulsed; and one man in particular walked up and down the platform leading from the gate of the Fort to the Launch for a whole day. Mr. Fullarton, who was then Governor at Albany, spoke to him in French, and offered him kind quarters if he chose to accept them; but to those proposals he made no reply, and only shook his head. Mr. Fullarton then told him, that unless he would resign himself up as a prisoner, he would most assuredly shoot him; on which the man advanced nearer the Fort, and Mr. Fullarton shot him out of his chamber window. Perhaps the hardships this poor man expected to encounter in his return to Canada, made him prefer death; but his refusing to receive quarter from so humane and generous an enemy as the English, is astonishing.
[E] I have seen the remains of those houses several times; they are on the West side of the harbour, and in all probability will be discernible for many years to come.
It is rather surprising, that neither Middleton, Ellis, Christopher, Johnston, nor Garbet, who have all of them been at Marble Island, and some of them often, ever discovered this harbour; particularly the last-mentioned gentleman, who actually sailed quite round the island in a very fine pleasant day in the Summer of 1766. But this discovery was reserved for a Mr. Joseph Stephens! a man of the least merit I ever knew, though he then had the command of a vessel called the Success, employed in the whale-fishery; and in the year 1769, had the command of the Charlotte given to him, a fine brig of one hundred tons; when I was his mate.
[F] The conditions offered me on this occasion cannot be better expressed than in the Company's own words, which I have transcribed from their private letter to me, dated 25th May 1769:
"From the good opinion we entertain of you, and Mr. Norton's recommendation, we have agreed to raise your wages to £——[18] per annum for two years, and have placed you in our Council at Prince of Wales's Fort; and we should have been ready to advance you to the command of the Charlotte, according to your request, if a matter of more immediate consequence had not intervened.
"Mr. Norton has proposed an inland Journey, far to the North of Churchill, to promote an extension of our trade, as well as for the discovery of a North West Passage, Copper Mines, &c.; and as an undertaking of this nature requires the attention of a person capable of taking an observation for determining the longitude and latitude, and also distances, and the course of rivers and their depths, we have fixed upon you (especially as it is represented to us to be your own inclination) to conduct this Journey, with proper assistants.
"We therefore hope you will second our expectations in readily performing this service, and upon your return we shall willingly make you any acknowledgment suitable to your trouble therein.
"We highly approve of your going in the Speedwell, to assist on the whale-fishery last year, and heartily wish you health and success in the present expedition.
"We remain your loving Friends,