hulls to send the English prisoners to the Hudson’s Bay Company forts at the south end of the bay.[11] Young Jean Groseillers was left, with seven men, to hold the French post till boats came in the following year.  On the 27th of July the ships weighed anchor for the homeward voyage.  Young Gillam was given a free passage by way of Quebec.  Bridgar was to have gone with his men to the Hudson’s Bay Company forts at the south of the bay, but at the last moment a friendly Englishman warned Radisson that the governor’s design was to wait till the large ship had left, head the bark back for Hayes River, capture the fort, and put the Frenchmen to the sword.  To prevent this Bridgar, too, was carried to Quebec.  Twenty miles out the ship was caught in ice-floes that held her for a month, and Bridgar again conspired to cut the throats of the Frenchmen.  Henceforth young Gillam and Bridgar were out on parole during the day and kept under lock at night.

The same jealousy as of old awaited Radisson at Quebec.  The Company of the North was furious that La Chesnaye had sent ships to Hudson Bay, which the shareholders considered to be their territory by license.[12] Farmers of the Revenue beset the ship to seize the cargo, because the explorers had gone North without a permit.  La Chesnaye saved some of the furs by transshipping them for France before the vessel reached Quebec.  Then followed an interminable lawsuit, that exhausted the profits of the voyage.  La Barre had succeeded Frontenac as governor.  The best friends of La Barre would scarcely deny that his sole ambition as governor was to amass a fortune from the fur trade of Canada.  Inspired by the jealous Company of the North, he refused to grant Radisson prize money for the capture of the contraband ship, restored the vessel to Gillam, and gave him clearance to sail for Boston.[13] For this La Barre was sharply reprimanded from France; but the reprimand did not mend the broken fortunes of the two explorers, who had given their lives for the extension of the French domain.[14] M. Colbert summoned Radisson and Groseillers to return to France and give an account of all they had done; but when they arrived in Paris, on January 15, 1684, they learned that the great statesman had died.  Lord Preston, the English envoy, had lodged such complaints against them for the defeat of the Englishmen in Hudson Bay, that France hesitated to extend public recognition of their services.

[1] Within ten years so many different regulations were promulgated on the fur trade that it is almost impossible to keep track of them.  In 1673 orders came from Paris forbidding French settlers of New France from wandering in the woods for longer than twenty-four hours.  In 1672 M. Frontenac forbade the selling of merchandise to coureurs du bois, or the purchase of furs from them.  In 1675 a decree of the Council of State awarded to M. Jean Oudiette one-fourth of all beaver, with the exclusive right of buying and selling in Canada.  In 1676 Frontenac withdrew from the Cie Indes Occidentales all the rights it had over Canada and other places.  An ordinance of October 1, 1682, forbade all trade except under license.  An ordinance in 1684 ordered all fur traders trading in Hudson Bay to pay one-fourth to Farmers of the Revenue.