How far these two Frenchmen contributed to the beginning of trade in Hudson Bay, and to the founding of the Hudson Bay Company, has been a matter of much controversy. The question was originally of some importance, for French claims to priority of occupation in the Arctic regions rested in large measure on the real or the alleged doings of the two adventurers. Like the rest of the world, they must have heard of the existence of Hudson Bay, for the voyages to discover the North-West Passage, though not made by Frenchmen, were not made in secret; and they had gathered information from the Indians of Canada as to the possibilities of fur trading in these northern regions. They had more than once attempted, between 1658 and 1663, to make their way by land to the bay, but never seem to have reached its shores; and the first recorded overland visit from Canada, is that of a French priest, Albanel, who, in 1671-2, journeyed from Quebec to Lake St. John, and thence, by the line of the Rupert river, came to the sea, to find an English factory already established at the mouth of the river.
| Incorporation of the Hudson Bay Company. Rupert's Land. |
Gillam returned to England in 1669, and on May 2, 1670, the Hudson Bay Company came into existence. On that day Charles II issued a royal charter, creating a corporate body under the title of 'The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay.' Prince Rupert was the first Governor; Albemarle, Ashley, and Arlington were among the original grantees. The preamble of the charter recited that the persons named had 'at their own great cost and charges, undertaken an expedition for Hudson's Bay, in the North-West part of America, for the discovery of a new passage into the South Sea, and for the finding some trade for furs, minerals, and other considerable commodities'; and in their corporate capacity the Company were constituted absolute lords and proprietors, with a complete monopoly of trade of all the lands and seas 'that lie within the entrance of the straits, commonly called Hudson's Straits,' so far as they were not already actually granted to or possessed by British subjects, or the subjects of any other Christian Prince or State. The charter enacted that 'the said land' should be 'from henceforth reckoned and reputed as one of our plantations or colonies in America, called Rupert's Land.'
| Operations of the company. |
Armed with practically unlimited powers over an unlimited area, the company lost little time in sending out ships and establishing factories. In addition to Fort Rupert at the south-eastern end of James Bay, Fort Hayes, or Moose Fort, was constructed at the south-western end of the bay, at the mouth of the Moose river; and some distance to the north of the latter fort, Fort Albany was placed at the outlet of the Albany river. Voyages were also made to the mouth of the Nelson river, on the western shore of Hudson Bay, but no attempt was made to plant a factory there till the year 1682.
| Collision between French and English in Hudson Bay. A Canadian company formed. |
It was in that year and at Fort Nelson, as it was called, that French and English first came into collision in the far North. Radisson and Des Groseilliers, who had taken service with the English in consequence of being fined by the Governor of Canada for making their early journeys without his licence, subsequently returned to Canada, and piloted their countrymen by sea into Hudson Bay. A company was formed in Canada in 1682, the Compagnie du Nord, and sent out an expedition from Quebec with these two men on board. They reached the Nelson river; a few days before they arrived a Boston vessel appeared on the scene, and a few days subsequently a vessel came from England, sent by the Hudson Bay Company to build a fort. After a short interval the French overpowered the English; but two years later, in 1684, Radisson and Des Groseilliers having in the meantime again come back to the Hudson Bay Company, that company recovered its fort, and the French lost their footing on Hudson Bay.
| Attack made overland from Canada on the English forts on Hudson Bay. |
In the following year two Frenchmen passed overland from the bay to Canada by the Abbitibbi river, Lake Temiscaming, and the Ottawa; and it was determined to send a Canadian expedition by that route to attack the factories of the Hudson Bay Company. The rulers of Canada viewed with distrust English settlements to the north of New France, as they feared and distrusted the English colonies on the southern side, and they determined if possible to strangle them in infancy. Denonville was now Governor of Canada; and early in the year 1686 he dispatched a party of soldiers and Canadians to attack the forts on Hudson Bay. It was the kind of expedition in which French Canadians excelled, indifferent to privation and hardship, trained to toil through ice and snow, through unknown forests, making the rivers the highways for sleigh or canoe. Their leader was De Troyes, and with him went three sons of the celebrated Le Moyne family, including the most noted of them, Iberville. The Frenchmen followed the line of the Ottawa and the Abbitibbi, and in June, 1686, surprised and took Fort Hayes on the outlet of the Moose river. Crossing the eastern end of James Bay on the floating ice, they next reached Fort Rupert, seized a ship which was moored in front of the fort, and overpowered the fort itself. The sea was by this time open to navigation, and in canoes and the captured vessel the victorious Frenchmen turned west to attack Fort Albany. There was here some semblance of siege, but the little English garrison was forced to capitulate, and leaving Iberville in charge of the fort, which was renamed Fort St. Anne, De Troyes returned in November to Canada.