[Sidenote: Verandrye's work.] Thus were successively established, from 1731 to 1748, by Verandrye and his sons, Fort St. Pierre on Rainy Lake; Fort St. Charles on the Lake of the Woods; Fort Maurepas near the mouth of the Winnipeg; Fort Dauphin, on the north-west extremity of Lake Manitoba; Fort la Reine, on the southern extremity of the last-named lake; Fort Rouge, at the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red River; Fort Bourbon, at the head of Lake Winnipeg; Fort Poskoyae, on the Saskatchewan, and Fort Lacerne (Nipawi), at the forks of the said river. In 1752, some years prior to the conquest of Canada, a relative of Verandrye, named Niverville, established Fort Jonquiere at the foot of the mountains.[56] Which of all these forts were to pass, after many vicissitudes, into the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company, we shall see in the course of subsequent pages. Verandrye and his compeers chose their sites with great care and ability; so that it was rarely that their successors were able to improve upon them. On the foundations or charred remnants of the French forts, should the structures themselves have perished, the English fur-traders, when they came, reared anew their posts. While thus the French were pressing forward from the south and east at the same moment, a new rivalry threatened to spring up in the far north-west. [Sidenote: Russia looks toward the New World.] The eighteenth century broke upon an abated zeal of the Spaniards in extending their discoveries and dominions in the New World. Almost contemporaneously, the threads they threw down were grasped by another power, which the zeal and energy of one man had suddenly transformed from a collection of savage, barbarous tribes into a great nation. Having achieved conquest over his neighbours and the cohesion of his new empire, Peter the Great turned his attention to a hardly inferior task. None knew as yet whether the two great continents, Asia and North America, united on the north-east. During Peter's residence in England, not the least of the institutions interesting him was the Hudson's Bay Company. A letter from Peter is quoted by a Russian writer, in which he alludes to the English rivalry for these trades "which had so long been the monopoly of Muscovy fur-hunting and fur-gathering." Doubtless even at this time he was speculating upon the chances of Russia competing with England for the fur traffic of the New World. But before such a competition could be brought about the question of the geographical connection between Asia and America must be settled. When he had been in Holland in 1717, he had been urged by some of the most eminent patrons of discovery amongst the Dutch to institute an expedition of investigation. But again other matters intervened; although in 1727 two Russian officers were equipped and in readiness to start overland when they were recalled for service in Sweden.