Meantime, the Company was proceeding on the even tenor of its ways. Dividends of 50 per cent. were paid in ’83, the same in ’84, despite interception of furs by the French overlanders. In the suit for loss by the owners of Ben Gillam’s ship, the Company had emerged triumphant—its monopoly vindicated, and in 1684, Captain Walker of the south coast coming out of the bay on _The Diligence_, captured another pirate ship, _The Expectation_, whose owners again tested the Company’s claim to exclusive trade on the bay, by a lawsuit; and again the Company came out a victor—its monopoly justified by the courts. Three of the ships—_Happy Return_, Captain Bond; _Owners’ Good Will_, Captain Lucas, and _Success_, Captain Outlaw—were yearly chartered from Sir Stephen Evance, a rich goldsmith, who had become a heavy shareholder in the Company. Besides these, there were _The Perpetuana Merchant_, Captain Hume, with Smithsend as mate; _The Diligence_, Captain Walker; the sloop _Adventure_, Captain Geyer, and one frigate; in all a fleet of seven vessels, each carrying from twelve to twenty men plying to and from the bay. It was in 1686 that the sloop was sent north of Nelson to Churchill River, named after the great General—to open trade on the river where Munck’s Danes had suffered such frightful disaster. About this time, too, poor London boys began to go out as apprentices—scullions, valets, general knockabouts—among whom was one Henry Kelsey engaged at £8 a year, and his keep for Port Nelson. When James, Duke of York, became king, the position of governor of the Company was vacated, and Sir James Hayes, who seems always to have been the Company’s emissary in all court matters, is directed by the governing committee “_to bespeak the Lord John Churchill to dynner at ye Rummor Tavernne in Queen’s Street_” on business for the company’s very great interests. What that business was became evident at the General Court of the Adventurers called on April 2, 1685, when my Lord Churchill is elected governor by unanimous ballot. Phipps remains at Nelson as local governor, Sargeant at Albany, Nixon at Moose. Bridgar has been transferred to Rupert River, not important now, because the French are luring the Indians away, and Radisson is general superintendent of all trade, spending the winters in London to arrange the furs for sale and to choose the out-going cargoes, going each summer to the bay to barter with the Indians. _Notes on Chapter X._—With the exception of the two petitions filed by Radisson and Groseillers in France, and of young Groseillers’ letters—all the contents of this chapter are drawn from the official records of the Hudson’s Bay House. Young Groseillers, by the way, is usually called Jean Baptiste, but as he signs himself Chouart I have referred to him by that name.