THERE can be no doubt that Radisson and Groseilliers were an unscrupulous pair, but their side of the much-vexed question which developed is not hard to see. Knowing the value of their services to the English, they believed they were entitled to a fair share of the profits they were making for other men; for men who stayed comfortably at home and toasted their fat shins in front of warm fires and avidly drank their claret to the toast of bigger dividends. “We were Caesars,” wrote Radisson the Irrepressible. Like Caesar, they were conquerors. But grasping hands in high places were taking the rewards from them.
The French habit of impoverishing them with fines because they were so successful drove them to England and to the formation of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The suspicions and the social contempt of the English drove them again to the French service. They shuttled back and forth until the story becomes too complicated to follow in detail. Yes, they were unscrupulous, crafty, and glib. Their heads were filled with schemes, and so the men they dealt with had to be wary. But the French officials were as blind as bats, seeing these brave and somewhat mad adventurers as nothing but disobedient servants of the Crown. The English looked down their noses at these “renegades” and refused to give them any share in the company, fobbing them off with small and reluctant doles. In view of the bureaucratic stubbornness of the French and the cheese-paring of the English, there is some excuse for the pendulum-like course of these disgruntled pioneers.
The issue has been fought over so vehemently down the years that no clear pattern of the story emerges. One thing only is certain, that the blame must be divided. The censure of history cannot be withheld from any of the parties concerned.
Hudson’s Bay was a prize worth struggling for; Versailles knew this now as well as London. The Adventurers had been sending ships to the bay every year, and those which came back (the percentage of loss by shipwreck was heavy) carried wonderful cargoes. Although the system of having a governor on the ground had been started, the first being a certain Mr. Charles Bayly, the direction of trading and the matter of policy were still in the hands of these two superlative pioneers, or the two bold knaves, according to one’s reading of what happened.
In 1672, just before the Comte de Frontenac arrived in Quebec to become governor of New France, a disquieting state of affairs developed. The number of Indians bringing in their furs to Fort Charles on the Rupert River and the posts which had been established on the western side of the bay began to fall off. Radisson made an uneasy survey of the western shore where the Moose and the Severn and the Nelson emptied their waters into the bay, and on his return found a Jesuit priest, Charles Albanel, at Fort Charles. Father Albanel, a native of Auvergne, was one of the boldest of priestly explorers and had been sent to the North by Talon to claim the land for France. Coming overland by the Saguenay route, he had arrived some time before and had sat himself down to wait. He presented his credentials to Charles Bayly in the form of passports. At the same time he turned over some letters he had been carrying for Radisson and Groseilliers.
The explanation for the diminution in pelts now came out. French traders were striking north from the St. Lawrence, some by way of the Saguenay, others following the route which Radisson had wanted to take, by way of Lake Winnipeg. They were thus cutting across the lines by which the Indians converged on the bay and were getting the major share of the furs. They could not cover the whole of this vast expanse of muskeg and snow, but they were getting enough to leave holes in the holds of English ships returning to London.
England and France were not at war, and so Bayly had to accept the credentials of Father Albanel. He heard, however, of the letters which had been handed to Radisson and Groseilliers and his suspicions were aroused. Bayly, it appears, was a man of small tact. He summoned his two collaborators and charged them with being responsible for the irruption of French traders into the territory which the company now regarded as its own.
This was not true. The arrival of Father Albanel had been as much of a surprise to them as it had been to Bayly himself. It happened, moreover, to be a singularly inappropriate time to level such charges. The letters which the priest had conveyed to them contained proposals from Colbert for their return.
The upshot of Bayly’s charges was that the two Frenchmen returned to London at once to discuss this situation with the directors of the company. Protracted negotiations followed. It becomes clear enough that Radisson and Groseilliers would have remained in the service of the company if satisfactory terms had been offered them. They remained in London throughout the winter of 1673–74, pressing their claims during an interminable series of talks and conferences, the letters from Colbert burning holes in their pockets the while.
The company, however, remained adamant. The best they could do was to promise Radisson one hundred pounds per annum (this apparently was to be a joint fee, for no mention is made separately of Groseilliers) and “if it pleases God to bless the company with good success hereafter that they come to be in a prosperous condition that they will reassume considerations.”
Some authorities contend that the company had not been paying dividends and that this was the reason for the seeming niggardliness of their proposition. Others declare that the profits had been large and that dividends up to 100 per cent had been paid.
Radisson and Groseilliers slipped quietly across the Channel and paid a call on Colbert. He greeted them cordially and made it clear that the severity which had driven them to London in the first place was now regretted; as well it might be, for it had thrown the empire of the North into the hands of France’s great rival. He made them an offer: come back into the service of France and receive a salary three times as large as the Hudson’s Bay Company was offering. He wanted them for the navy, Colbert having been from the start the advocate of a powerful sea branch, even at the expense of the army.
A deal was made on that basis.
The attitude of the directors in London is hard to understand unless they had reasons, which have not come to light, for suspecting the intentions of the two Frenchmen. This does not seem likely in view of the resumption years later of a relationship with Radisson. What makes it difficult to understand is that they were already establishing the sound policies which were to remain in force up to modern times and to prove so extremely successful. They had a conception which can be described only as feudal. The charter which King Charles had granted to them gave the company a monopoly of all trade in the North, the right to build forts, to organize and equip ships of war, and to pass their own laws and duly enforce them. The people of the lands thus handed over to the company became their subjects. The company had the power of life and death over them.
A stern policy would slowly evolve as a result of these sweeping concessions. Free trading would not be tolerated and no one would be allowed to invade the territory, either as settler or transient trader, without the consent of the officers of the company. The rights which had been granted them would be maintained and the laws laid down would be sternly enforced. Under the iron hand of this autocracy the Indians of the North would live for nearly two hundred years. The power of the white gods of the trading posts would be respected and feared. There would be bloodshed occasionally and a succession of incidents, but in the main peace would reign in the North; for the directors also laid down the rule that, if they must be stern and unyielding, they must also be just.
The germs of other basic ideas were already blossoming. To make the rule in the North truly feudal, it must be conducted with pomp and splendor. The first indication of this was in the selection of governors. Prince Rupert filled the post in the early years. He was succeeded by the King’s brother James, Duke of York, later James II. The third was John Churchill, the great Duke of Marlborough.
The governors of the posts maintained a considerable amount of pomp. Their food might be plain and scarce, but it was served with great state, with much piping and drumming. They met the Indians in velvet capes and with swords clanking at their sides. The poor natives were properly impressed and remained that way for the two centuries of company supremacy. Later the natives would begin to depend on the posts for the food they would need during the winters and would find themselves in an almost perpetual state of indebtedness.
This feudal policy was carried into the relationships with employees. If a man was injured he received “smart money,” or a pension if he had been permanently incapacitated. The widows of those who died in the service or were lost at sea were treated in like vein. It is strange that the effort to be fair did not extend to the relationship with Radisson and Groseilliers. If the two Frenchmen had been kept reasonably content, the company would have been spared much fighting and trouble and endless expense. This was, at the least, a serious error of judgment.
In the year 1680 an important conference was held in New France. Where it took place is not known, but it was probably at Montreal, for at least three of the men included in the group were of that town. It was not an official conference; none of those in attendance held posts in the royal service. They were, instead, the great figures of the colony, the bold and the farseeing, the wise and the courageous men. Among them were the Sieur de la Salle, about whose exploits much will be told later; Joliet, joint discoverer of the Mississippi; a successful fur trader of Quebec named Aubert de la Chesnaye. Then there was that brave and solid citizen of Montreal, Charles le Moyne. His seigneury at Longueuil was in a flourishing condition and his trading enterprises in Montreal were making a prosperous man of him. He now had six sons, all of them destined to play truly glorious roles in the tumultuous years ahead. And, to give point to the gathering, there were Radisson and Groseilliers.
These two stormy petrels of the North had been for many years in the employment of France. They had not been allowed a chance, however, to return to the bay. As long as the two countries were at peace a fiction of neutrality had to be maintained and, as the English were in possession there, nothing could be done to disturb them. Radisson had been with the navy and had spent one year in the West Indies. He had been unhappy, for his heart was always in the North. He had happened to encounter La Chesnaye, and the latter had urged him to fall in line with a plan which he himself had been hatching. Radisson had agreed willingly enough, and this had carried with it the consent of his faithful partner as well.
The importance of this informal gathering can be judged by the fact that out of it came La Compagnie du Nord, the Company of the North, an organization which represented the will of the French-Canadian people to contest the lordship of the fur country with the Hudson’s Bay Company. La Chesnaye was persuasive and glib, and it is probable that he shared with Radisson the major role in the deliberations. Ordinarily it would have seemed strange to see the Sieur de la Salle and Charles le Moyne sitting by and allowing other men to monopolize anything as momentous as this. But the former’s mind was set on the South, and he was present largely for the weight of his name. Charles le Moyne would watch the proceedings with a wise and wary eye, even though he may not have much to say. He was getting a little too old and heavy to take a personal part in anything as exacting as this, but his oldest sons were ready.
The first step after reaching the decision to organize a company for the conquest of the North was to go to the Comte de Frontenac for the necessary permission. No one could have had more eagerness for the bold and the unusual than this great governor, but he was, after all, the King’s representative in New France and he had to consider that the King was at peace with England. It would have been a grave mistake to give the new organization an official blessing and the commission they asked. On the surface, therefore, he took an aloof attitude, refusing to issue the commission and withholding his approval of the plan.
His decision seems, however, to have been delivered with a wink. If they, the applicants, chose to send ships into Hudson’s Bay without official sanction, that clearly was their own business. He, Frontenac, must know nothing about it. They should understand that if they got into trouble they must get out of it themselves.
Frontenac was a shrewd man. He had, of course, heard a great deal about Radisson and Groseilliers, these legendary figures who were either loved very much or held up as renegades and hated. While the applicants were grouped about him in the citadel of St. Louis he cast many appraising glances in their direction. He could not fail to be impressed by them. Radisson, never a large man, was beginning to look actually rather small. Time, that shrinker of spines, had taken an inch from his stature at the same time that it sprinkled his hair with gray; but a penetrating observer would not miss the occasional blaze of fire in his eye. Groseilliers, the older by some years, was growing heavy and slow. He had little to say, leaving the matter of spokesmanship to his more dexterous partner, but there was never any possibility of a mistake about this man who had taken his title from a patch of wild berry bushes in Three Rivers. He was always one to be reckoned with; a doer of deeds, a fighter who struck hard and often.
Having thus obtained a left-handed blessing from the governor, the little group got down to business. La Chesnaye, a great promiser, assured them that he could produce the necessary funds and the ships if Radisson and Groseilliers would take the command. Their consent was readily obtained. This was what they wanted to do more than anything else in the world: to see once more the strait of the icebergs, to cruise along the shores where the fast-flowing rivers brought down the Indian canoes piled high with pelts, to strike the blows which would redeem them forever in the eyes of their fellow countrymen.
It was decided, therefore, that Radisson and Groseilliers would go into semi-retirement for the winter. In the spring they would repair to Isle Percé, where the fishing fleets congregated, and there they would wait for the twin ships La Chesnaye had promised to fit out and man.
La Chesnaye, it developed, was better at making promises than in the fulfillment of them. The two ships which finally came heaving and pitching into Isle Percé like a pair of veteran porpoises were the smallest and oldest and the crankiest to handle that could have been produced by a search of the offcasts of all nations. They were called the St. Pierre and the Ste. Anne and they could hold no more than thirty men between them; which was perhaps just as well, because the men La Chesnaye had recruited were for the most part raw and inexperienced landlubbers. The rigging was rotten, the holds were unseaworthy, and there was a stench about these derelicts which only long service in the fishing trade could produce. Was it possible for even inspired leaders to accomplish anything under these circumstances? Could Radisson and Groseilliers win back the bay with ships redeemed from naval junk piles and with the culls and misfits who made up the crews?
They decided to try. Radisson took the St. Pierre. Groseilliers, having a grown-up son, Jean Chouart, with him, took the Ste. Anne. After suppressing a mutinous outbreak among the crew, who were finding the service quite different from what they had expected, they finally reached Hudson’s Bay in September.
Dependence must be placed on Radisson’s narrative for the story of what happened after that, and it has to be avowed at the start that there was always a hint of vagueness and more than a tendency to exaggerate in everything he put down on paper. Briefly, therefore, what happened was as follows. The Frenchmen in their inadequate little tubs came limping into the waters where the Hayes and the Nelson rivers raced to the bay. They found there a ship, the Bachelor’s Delight, which had come from New England under the command of Ben Gillam, a son of the captain who had figured in the early years of the company. They were poaching, these bold colonials, and the delighted Radisson saw at once that he had a hold over young Ben Gillam which could be used to advantage. By his glib talk he had “come over” young Gillam and won his confidence when a vessel owned by the company, the Prince Rupert, completed the triangle. It sailed into the estuary of the Nelson with two men of some prominence on board, Governor Bridgar of the company and old Zachariah Gillam himself.
The newcomers should have sensed the situation at once because the directors of the company had made plans for just such an emergency as this. On sailing, the captains of company ships were given sealed orders which contained among other things the harbor signals. Ships on the bay which did not hoist the proper signals were to be fired on as poachers and interlopers. Neither Radisson nor Ben Gillam was in a position to fly the right signals—in fact, they did not dare fly any flag at all—and the Prince Rupert should have blown them out of the water.
Radisson took advantage of the opportunity thus presented to him. He built a high fire, which was the Indian way of announcing their presence with furs to trade, and in response the Prince Rupert came in to anchor. Radisson then succeeded in getting the ear of old Zachariah Gillam and acquainted him with the news of his son’s involvement. Zachariah was distressed, for he knew that his son could be shot if his identity was discovered. He did not, therefore, let Bridgar know that this bearded stranger was none other than Pierre Esprit Radisson, that well-known turner of coats.
Then nature took a decisive hand. A storm drove the ice from the bay into the estuary, and the Prince Rupert was sunk. Fourteen of the crew, including Captain Zachariah Gillam, were drowned.
At this point the story that Radisson retails becomes too involved for recapitulation or belief. By devious means, which he makes more ingenious than any pirate ever contrived, he took possession of a fort which Ben Gillam had built on shore and captured the whole New England crew. Not a blow was struck, not a drop of blood spilled. Then he made prisoners of Bridgar and most of his men (this one does justice to Münchhausen himself), and putting all of them on board the Bachelor’s Delight, and all the furs which the poachers had secured, he sailed away in triumph.
It is almost impossible to believe what Radisson tells of the methods by which he brought about this miracle, but there is no denying the results. The Bachelor’s Delight reached Quebec. Bridgar and Ben Gillam were on board in the role of prisoners. There was a valuable cargo in the hold.
This much also is certain. The people of Quebec went wild with enthusiasm when the terror of the North, who had always been a hero in the eyes of most of them, came into the harbor with his loot and his prisoners. But in high circles there was no trace of enthusiasm at all. In the citadel of St. Louis there was at this time a governor named Le Febvre de la Barre, an old soldier who completely lacked the qualifications to deal with situations like this. To Governor la Barre the success of Radisson was a complication which he solved by doing the obvious thing. He fined the victors and ordered that they return at once to France and report to Colbert, who would know how to deal with them. He restored the Bachelor’s Delight to Ben Gillam and allowed him to sail for Boston. Bridgar was set at liberty with diplomatic apologies.
La Compagnie du Nord came very close to a premature collapse as a result of this decision on the part of Governor la Barre. When Radisson, impoverished a second time by the fines imposed on him, reached Paris he found that Colbert was dead and that the King was in a state of fury over the whole episode. Louis was angry with La Barre and wrote to him demanding to know why the latter had thus publicly surrendered the French claim to Hudson’s Bay. He was furious with Radisson because he had been too successful but a little later ordered him to go back to the bay and do what he could to help the English restore order. The English Government furiously bombarded Versailles with demands for damages and the punishment of the men responsible for the losses of the company.
At this point Groseilliers drops out of the story. Some say he retired to Three Rivers and lived out the balance of his days there with his faithful Marguerite and his brood of children. Others believe that he died in the North while Radisson was performing his feats of legerdemain. Whatever the reason, he dropped for good from the pages of history, and from that point on Radisson traveled alone.
Radisson was, needless to state, very unhappy over this break in a friendship which had withstood for so many years the strain of great successes and the bitterness of defeat. It had been a truly remarkable alliance, a David and Jonathan epic of the north woods and waters. Radisson was the showy partner, the dynamic leader. Groseilliers had carried the heaviest share of the burdens. That the entente had not been impaired is evidenced by the fact that Radisson left young Jean Chouart in charge of the captured forts in the North when he made his victorious return to Quebec.
In the spring of 1684 there was a meeting of the directors of the Hudson’s Bay Company at which a most unexpected announcement was made. Pierre Esprit Radisson was back in London. Like the Vicar of Bray, “he had turned a cat in a pan once more” and he was back for good. He was no longer willing to trust himself and his fortunes to the mercy of French colonial governors. The directors, willing to forget the past, welcomed the prodigal and made an agreement with him by which he received stock to the value of two hundred pounds, a salary of one hundred pounds in years when dividends were not paid and fifty when they were, and the sum of twenty-five pounds to set himself up again. They were so glad to see the rolling stone on their side that they made a present of seven musquash skins to Sir William Young, who had persuaded Radisson to return. They even took the Frenchman to meet the Duke of York, who had succeeded Prince Rupert as governor of the company. As a shareholder he had to take the customary oath of allegiance, which began, “I doe sweare to bee true and faithful to ye Comp’y of Adventurers: ye secrets of ye Comp’y I will not disclose.…”
In the years that followed Radisson seems to have been an active and faithful servant of the company, although he was still to wage many battles with the directors over his share of the proceeds and to secure a pension for his wife. He went out to the bay immediately in the Happy Return; and a happy return it was, for he brought back twenty thousand pelts. He made many other trips to the wild north country which he loved so much and was a factor, without a doubt, in the successes which now crowned the company efforts. There were years when his dividends on the two hundred pounds of stock he held amounted to one hundred and fifty and there were years when he received, probably as a result of the loss of ships, no more than fifty.
As he grew older he ceased to accompany the ships to the bay. He had more arguments with the directors, as a result of which his income was cut to a regular one hundred pounds a year. On this he was able to live reasonably well although he had nine children to support. He drew his last quarterly installment in July 1710, when he was in his seventy-sixth year.
His last years could not have been happy ones. In London, his ears were filled with the cries of the streets, and this must have been a poor substitute for the sound of dipping paddles and the swish of water along the sides of a birch-bark canoe. From his windows he saw sooty chimney pots and lowering skies instead of the green line of trees and the flash of the northern lights.
Of all the characters produced by New France, and there were so many of them, he seems the most picturesque. He had in him much of the stuff of greatness.