There were in Boston at this time, however, four personages whom the King had sent as envoys, in 1664, to force the Dutch to evacuate Manhattan, and who were also a kind of commission instructed to visit the English colonies, and to hear and rule their complaints. They were Richard Nichols, Robert Carr, George Cartwright and Samuel Maverick. One of these, Colonel Carr, it is said, strongly urged Groseilliers to proceed to England and offer his services to the King. [Sidenote: Zachary Gillam.] Although, therefore, he was unable to secure there the patronage he desired, Groseilliers' visit to Boston was not quite barren of profit. He fell in besides with an intelligent sea-faring man, Zachary Gillam, who was then captain and part-owner of a small vessel, the _Nonsuch_, with which he plied a trade between the colony and the mother country. Gillam expressed himself eager to assist in the project as far as lay in his power, and offered his services in case an equipment could be found. A long correspondence passed between Groseilliers and his brother-in-law in Canada, the latter very naturally urging that as the New England project had failed, it would be advisable not to seek further aid from the English, but that, as nothing was to be expected from the Canada Company, or the merchants of Canada, it would be as well to journey to France, and put the matter before the French Court. Groseilliers seems to have agreed to this; and he wrote back begging Radisson to join him in Boston with the object of accompanying him to France. In June, 1665, both the adventurers set sail in the _Nonsuch_ for Plymouth, whence in all likelihood they proceeded direct to Havre. It would be unprofitable, and at best but a repetition, to describe the difficulties Groseilliers and his brother-in-law met with in Paris, the petitions they presented and the many verbal representations they made. In the midst of their ill-success Colonel Carr came to Paris. There is extant a letter of his to Lord Arlington. "Having heard," says he, "by the French in New England of a great traffic in beavers" to be got in the region of Hudson's Bay, and "having had proofs of the assertions" of the two adventurers, he thought "the finest present" he could make to his majesty was to despatch these men to him. The ambassador pondered on this and at last decided to entrust Groseilliers with a letter to a certain prince--a friend of his--and a patron of the Arts and Sciences. Leaving Radisson despondent in Paris, therefore, the other adventurer crossed the Channel and found himself, with a beating heart, for the first time in the English capital. FOOTNOTES: