_Notes on Chapter VII._—For authorities on this chapter see Chapters VIII and IX. To those familiar with the subject, this chapter will clear up a great many discrepancies. In the life of Radisson in _Pathfinders of the West_, it was necessary to state frankly that his movements could not be traced definitely at this period both as to locale and time. The facts of this chapter are taken solely from the official Stock Books, Minute Books, Sailing Directions and Journals of Hudson’s Bay House, London. Extracts from these minutes will be found after Chapter VIII and IX. One point in _Pathfinders of the West_, all authorities differ as to the time when Radisson left the company, Albanel’s Journal in the Jesuit Relations being of 1672, Gorst’s record of the quarrel in 1674, and other accounts placing the date as late as 1676. My examinations of the Hudson’s Bay records show that the rupture occurred in London in October, 1674. How, then, is Albanel’s Relation 1672? The passport from Frontenac, which Albanel delivered to Bayly—now on record in Hudson’s Bay Company papers—is dated, Quebec, Oct. 7, 1673. If the passport only left Quebec in October, 1673, and Albanel reached the bay in August, 1674—there is only one conclusion: the date of his journal, 1672, is wrong by two years. One can easily understand how this would occur in a journal made up of scraps of writing jotted down in canoes, in tepees, everywhere and anywhere, and then passed by couriers from hand to hand till it reached the Cramoisy printers of Paris. [Illustration: Rupert House, Rupert River, James Bay, as it is To-day.] A letter to the Secretary of State, dated Sept. 25, 1675, relates: “This day came _The Shaftsbury Pink_ ffrom Hudson Baye. Capt. Shopard, ye capt. tiles me thay found a franch Jesuit thare that did endeavor to convert ye Indians & persuad them not to trade with ye English, for wh. reason they have brought him away with them.... Capt. Gillam we expect to-morrow.” Later: “This day is arrived Capt. Gillam. I was on board of him and he tells me they were forced to winter there and spend all their Provisions. They have left only four men to keep possession of the place. I see the French Jesuit is a little ould man.” CHAPTER VIII 1670-1870 “GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS OF ENGLAND”—LORDS OF THE OUTER MARCHES—TWO CENTURIES OF COMPANY RULE—SECRET OATHS—THE USE OF WHISKEY—THE MATRIMONIAL OFFICES—THE PART THE COMPANY PLAYED IN THE GAME OF INTERNATIONAL JUGGLING—HOW TRADE AND VOYAGES WERE CONDUCTED Just where the world’s traffic converges to that roaring maelstrom in front of the Royal Exchange, London—on Lime Street, off Leadenhall Street—stands an unpretentious gray stone building, the home of a power that has held unbroken sway over the wilds of America for two-and-a-half centuries. It is the last of those old companies granted to royal favorites of European courts for the partitioning of America.