The Adventurers of England on Hudson Bay: A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the NorthLaut, Agnes C.
History
The Adventurers of England on Hudson Bay: A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North
Laut, Agnes C.
Fur trade -- Canada; Hudson's Bay Company; Northwest, Canadian -- History
Now, in Radisson's pockets were offers from Colbert, the great minister
at the French Court, for service in the French Navy at three times this
salary. Abruptly, in the fall of 1674, the two Frenchmen left London and
took service under Colbert. But now another difficulty blocked
Radisson's advance. Colbert insisted that Radisson's wife should come to
France to live. He thought that as long as Madame Radisson remained in
England her husband's loyalty could not be trusted. Besides, her
father, Sir John Kirke, was a claimant against France for £40,000
damages arising out of the capture of Quebec in 1629 by his relatives
and its restoration to France in 1632 without recognition of the
family's rights. If Sir John's daughter was residing in Paris as the
wife of a French naval officer, the minister saw that this dispute might
be more easily adjusted; and so he declined to promote the two Frenchmen
until Madame Radisson came to France.
In 1679, during shore leave from the navy, Radisson met one of his old
cronies of Quebec--Aubert de la Chesnaye, a fur trader. 'He proposed to
me,' Radisson says, 'to undertake to establish the beaver trade in the
great Bay where I had been some years before on account of the English.'
It may be supposed that naval discipline ill-suited these wild
wood-wanderers, and after this it is not surprising that we find
Radisson and Groseilliers again in New France at a conference of fur
traders and explorers, among whom were La Salle, Jolliet, Charles Le
Moyne, the soldier with the famous sons, and La Chesnaye. No doubt
Radisson told those couriers of the wilderness tales of profit on the
sea in the north that brought great curses down on the authorities of
New France who forbade the people of the colony free access to that rich
fur field. La Chesnaye had introduced the brothers-in-law to Frontenac,
the governor of New France, and had laid before him their plans for a
trading company to operate on the great bay; but Frontenac 'did not
approve the business.' He could not give a commission to invade the
territory of a friendly power; still, if La Chesnaye and his associates
chose to assume risks, he could wink at an invasion of rival traders'
domains. A bargain was made. La Chesnaye would find the capital and
equip two ships, and Radisson and Groseilliers would make the voyage.
The brothers-in-law would sail at once for Acadia, there to spend the
winter, and in the spring they would come with the fishing fleets to
Isle Percé, where La Chesnaye would send their ships.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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