The Great Company : $b being a history of the honourable company of merchants-adventurers trading into Hudson's BayWillson, Beckles
History
The Great Company : $b being a history of the honourable company of merchants-adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay
Willson, Beckles
Fur trade -- Canada; Hudson's Bay Company; Northwest, Canadian -- History
In August, 1660, the two adventurers found their way back to Montreal,
after over a year's absence. They were accompanied by three hundred
Indians, and in possession of sixty canoes laden with furs, which they
undertook to dispose of to the advantage of the savages and
themselves. As they had anticipated, they found the little colony and
its leaders deeply interested in their reports of the extent and
richness of the fur-producing countries to the westward, as well as
in their description of the unfamiliar tribes inhabiting that region.
The sale of the furs having resulted in a handsome profit,
Groseilliers announced to his brother-in-law his intention of making
the journey on his own account. There was no dearth of volunteers
eager to embark in the enterprise, and from those who offered their
services he chose six Frenchmen--_coureurs des bois_ or bushrangers;
and having provided himself with an ample outfit, turned his footsteps
once more to the prairies of the west, while Radisson went to rejoin
his wife and sister at Three Rivers.
On the eve of his departure the Jesuit Fathers, distrusting
Groseilliers' religious proclivities and suspecting that he might
attempt to influence the Assiniboines, insisted upon one of their
number accompanying him. The priest chosen for this arduous mission
was the aged missionary Réné Ménard, who, in spite of his physical
frailty was still undaunted by any prospect of peril; though he was,
on this occasion, prevailed upon to allow his servant Guérin to
accompany him. It was the priest's last journey. When Groseilliers
again reached Montreal, after a season in the wilderness as prosperous
as its forerunner, he bore the mournful news that Ménard had been
massacred and his body, beyond question, devoured by a fierce band of
Indians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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