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
Groseilliers had thus to reckon with the new fur-trading proprietors
of Quebec, who were to prove themselves less complaisant than the old.
They instantly interdicted traders from going in search of peltries;
reasoning that the produce would ultimately find its way into their
hands, without the need of any such solicitation. And though
Groseilliers persistently explained to them that their policy of
interdiction was really a short-sighted one; that the Indians could
not be always depended upon to bring their own furs to the Company's
mart; and that no great time would elapse before the English or Dutch
would push their way westward to Lake Superior, and so acquire an
unequalled opportunity of developing the resources of the northern
regions; neither his criticism and advice (founded on personal
knowledge of the unstable Indian character) nor the apprehensions of
rivalry, which he showed good grounds for entertaining, had any power
to move the officials of the Hundred Associates. Neither argument,
entreaty, nor prognostications of danger would induce them to look
with any favour upon Groseilliers' project, or even entertain his
proposals.
[Sidenote: Groseilliers in Boston.]
Groseilliers afterwards hinted that it was prejudice against his
adopted religion which really lay at the bottom of this complete
rejection of his scheme, and also accounted for the Company's refusal
to avail themselves of his services, otherwise than as a mere salaried
servant. It was at this juncture that he sought the advice of
Radisson, and it is not unlikely that it was the counsels of his
brother-in-law which induced him to resolve upon a bold step in the
furtherance of his cherished project. It was well-known that the
English colonists settled in New England were putting forth the
strongest efforts to secure a share of the fur-trade of the North.
Their allies, the redoubtable Iroquois, had upon several occasions
way-laid and plundered the Huron tribes, who were conveying their
cargoes to Quebec and Montreal, and had delivered these into the hands
of the English. Farther westward, the Dutch were indefatigable in
their endeavours to divert the fur-traffic of the North from the St.
Lawrence to the Hudson. But the Dutch had been vanquished by the
English; New Amsterdam was now New York; and it was English brains
and English money which now controlled the little colony and the
untravelled lands which lay beyond it. It was to the English,
therefore, that the indomitable adventurer now determined to apply.
Madame Radisson had relatives in Boston; her father was an intimate
friend of the Governor. Relying on such influences as these, but still
more on the soundness of his project, Groseilliers made his way to
Boston by way of Acadia.
[Illustration: A CHART OF HUDSON'S STREIGHTS AND BAY OF DAVIS
STREIGHTS, AND BAFFIN'S BAY; AS PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1668. ]
Early in 1664 we find the Mother Superior of the Ursuline Nuns at
Quebec writing thus of Groseilliers:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account