But _The Eaglet_, with Radisson, was in bad way. Larger and ponderous in motion, she could not shift quick to the raging gale. Blast after blast caught her broadsides. The masts snapped off like saplings uprooted by storm. A tornado of waters threw the ship on her side “_till we had like to have swamped_”—relate the old Company records—and when the storm cleared and the ship righted, behold, of _The Eaglet_ there is left only the bare hull, with deck boards and cabin floors sprung in a dozen places. The other ship was out of sight. Carpenters were set at work to rig the lame vessel up. It was almost October before the battered hull came crawling limply to her dock on the Thames. There, Sir James Hayes, Rupert’s secretary, turned her over to the Admiralty. [Illustration: Photograph of the copy of Radisson’s Voyages, end of the third trip on which he discovered Mississippi River, beginning of the fourth trip on which he discovered the overland route to the Sea of the North, or Hudson’s Bay. The original of Radisson’s first four voyages is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, part of the famous Pepys Collection. The question has been raised is this Radisson’s handwriting, or that of a copyist, like Rodd and others who did professional work for Shaftesbury and others of Radisson’s associates? Specialists on the handwriting and idioms of the period say this is undoubtedly the work of a foreigner not familiar with the idioms of the English.] Adversity is a great tester of a man’s mettle. When some men fall they tumble _down_ stairs. Other men, when they fall, make a point of falling _up_ stairs. Radisson was of the latter class. His activity redoubled. The design in the first place had been for one of the two ships to winter on the bay; the other ship to come back to England in order to return to the bay with more provisions. Radisson urged his associates not to leave _The Nonsuch_ in the lurch. Application was made to the Admiralty for another ship. _The Wavero_ of the West Indies was granted. Radisson spent the winter of 1668-69 fitting up this ship and writing the account of his first four voyages through the wilds of America, “_and I hope_”—he concludes the fourth voyage—“_to embarke myselfe by ye helpe of God this fourth year_” of coming to England. But _The Wavero_ on which Radisson sailed in March, 1669, proved unseaworthy. She had to turn back. What was Radisson’s delight to find anchored in the Thames, _The Nonsuch_, with his brother-in-law, Groseillers.