These Gentlemen, Satisfied With What I Had Said
To Them, Believed With Justice That They Would Be Able To Have Entire
Confidence In Me.
As for that, having resolved to entrust me with their
orders for going with their shipps, equipped & furnished with
Everything to
found that establishment in putting into execution my projects, they gave
the power of settling in my own mind & conscience the claims of my nephew &
the other French, assuring me that they would be satisfied with the account
that I would present to them. I accepted that commission with the greatest
pleasure in the world, and I hurried with so much diligence the necessary
things for my departure, that in less than eight days I was in a condition
to embark myself. This was done even without any precaution on my part for
my own interests, for I did not wish to make any composition with these
gentlemen. I said to them that since they had confidence in me, I wished
also on my part to make use of it generously with them and remit everything
to the success of my voyage, and on my return, in the hope that I had that
they would satisfy my honesty of purpose, and that after having given to
them some marks of my sincerity in executing the things to perform which I
had engaged myself for their service, they would render me all the justice
that I had cause for hoping from gentlemen of honour and probity. The ships
destined for Hudson's Bay and the execution of my design were ready to make
sail, & myself being all prepared for embarking, I took leave of the
gentlemen of the Company in giving them fresh assurances of the good
success of my voyage if God did me the favour of preserving me from the
dangers to which I went to expose myself; of which they appeared so well
satisfied that the Chevalier Hayes dared not flatter himself of the
advantage that I promissed to him, that they should get from 15 to 20,000
Beavers that I hoped to find in the hands of the French, said, in embracing
me, that the company would be satisfied if I had only 5,000 of them there.
The event has justified that which I predicted, and these gentlemen have
not been deceived in the hopes that I have given to them. I departed from
the port of Gravesend the 17th of the same month of May, in the ship called
"The Happy Return," in the company of 2 others that these gentlemen sent
also to Port Nelson for the same reason. The winds having been favourable
for us, we arrived in a few days upon the western side of Buttons Bay
without anything happening to us worth mentioning, but the winds and the
currents. We having been made to drift to the South of Port Nelson about 40
leagues, and the ice having separated the ship in which I was from the 2
others in Hudson's Straits, I began to doubt of succeeding in my enterprise
by the apprehension that I had that the 2 ships having arrived sooner than
ours the men who were inside would not hazard themselves to take any step
which could at all do them any damage.
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