with a fortune of pelts was the salvation of the impecunious governor.  From 1627 to 1663 five distinct fur companies, organized under the patronage of royalty, had gone bankrupt in New France.[12] Therefore, it became a loyal governor to protect his Majesty’s interests.  Besides, the revenue collectors could claim one-fourth of all returns in beaver except from posts farmed expressly for the king.  No sooner had Radisson and Groseillers come home than D’Argenson ordered Groseillers imprisoned.  He then fined the explorers $20,000, to build a fort at Three Rivers, giving them leave to put their coats-of-arms on the gate; a $30,000 fine was to go to the public treasury of New France; $70,000 worth of beaver was seized as the tax due the revenue.  Of a cargo worth $300,000 in modern money, Radisson and Groseillers had less than $20,000 left.[13]

Had D’Argenson and his successors encouraged instead of persecuted the discoverers, France could have claimed all North America but the narrow strip of New England on the east and the Spanish settlements on the south.  Having repudiated Radisson and Groseillers, France could not claim the fruits of deeds which she punished.[14]

[1] The childish dispute whether Bourdon sailed into the bay and up to its head, or only to 50 degrees N. latitude, does not concern Radisson’s life, and, therefore, is ignored.  One thing I can state with absolute certainty from having been up the coast of Labrador in a most inclement season, that Bourdon could not possibly have gone to and back from the inner waters of Hudson Bay between May 2 and August 11.  J. Edmond Roy and Mr. Sulte both pronounce Bourdon a myth, and his trip a fabrication.

[2] “Shame put upon them,” says Radisson.  Menard did not go out with Radisson and Groseillers, as is erroneously recorded.

[3] I have purposely avoided stating whether Radisson went by way of Lake Ontario or the Ottawa.  Dr. Dionne thinks that he went by Ontario and Niagara because Radisson refers to vast waterfalls under which a man could walk.  Radisson gives the height of these falls as forty feet.  Niagara are nearer three hundred; and the Chaudiere of the Ottawa would answer Radisson’s description better, were it not that he says a man could go under the falls for a quarter of a mile.  “The Lake of the Castors” plainly points to Lake Nipissing.

[4] The two main reasons why I think that Radisson and Groseillers were now moving up that chain of lakes and rivers between Minnesota and Canada, connecting Lake of the Woods with Lake Winnipeg, are:  (1) Oldmixon says it was the report of the Assiniboine Indians from Lake Assiniboine (Lake Winnipeg) that led Radisson to seek for the Bay of the North overland.  These Assiniboines did not go to the bay by way of Lake Superior, but by way of Lake Winnipeg. (2) A memoire written by De la Chesnaye in 1696—­see Documents Nouvelle France, 1492-1712—­distinctly refers to a coureur’s trail from Lake Superior to Lake Assiniboine or Lake Winnipeg.  There is no record of any Frenchmen but Radisson and Groseillers having followed such a trail to the land of the Assiniboines—­the Manitoba of to-day—­before 1676.