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. [Sidenote: _Incorporation of the Hudson Bay Company._] [Sidenote: _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 {187} 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.' [Sidenote: _Operations of the company._]