In the spring of 1669, on the recommendation of the king, the Admiralty lent the ship _Wavero_ to the adventurers that Radisson might sail to Hudson Bay. In his eagerness Radisson set out too early. For a second time he was driven back by storm, but, on coming in to harbour at Gravesend, what was his delight to find the _Nonsuch_ back from Hudson Bay with Groseilliers and Gillam and such a cargo of furs from the Rupert river as English merchants had never before dreamed! The _Nonsuch_ had reached Hudson Strait in August of the year before, and the captain, guided by Groseilliers, had steered south for 'the rendezvous' at the lower end of the Bay, where the two French explorers had set up their marks six years before. There, at the mouth of the river named Rupert in honour of their patron prince, the traders cast anchor on September 25. At high tide they beached the ship and piled logs round her to protect her timbers from ice jams. Then they built a fort, consisting of two or three log huts for winter quarters, enclosed in a log palisade. This they named Fort Charles. The winter that followed must have been full of hardship for the Englishmen, but a winter on the Bay had no terrors for Groseilliers. While Gillam and the Englishmen kept house at the fort, he coursed the woods on snow-shoes, found the Indian camps, and persuaded the hunters to bring down their furs to trade with him in the spring. Then, when the wild geese darkened the sky and the ice went out with a rush, preparations were made for the homeward voyage. In June the ship sailed out of the Bay and, as we have seen, had docked at Gravesend on the Thames while the _Wavero_ with Radisson was coming back. The adventurers lost no time. That winter they applied for a charter, and in May 1670 the charter was granted by King Charles to '_The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay_.' The ostensible object was to find the North-West Passage; and to defray the cost of that finding a monopoly in trade for all time was given.