At The Peace Of Utrecht, In 1713, The Forts
Captured By The French In 1697 Were Restored To The Company, Who By 1720
Had Again Trebled Their Capital, With A Call Of Only Ten Per Cent.
After a
long and fierce rivalry with the Northwest Fur Company, the two companies
were amalgamated in 1821.
[Footnote: Encyclopaedia Britannica.]
Radisson commences his narrative of 1652 in a reverent spirit, by
inscribing it "a la plus grande gloire de Dieu." All his manuscripts have
been handed down in perfect preservation. They are written out in a clear
and excellent handwriting, showing the writer to have been a person of good
education, who had also travelled in Turkey and Italy, and who had been in
London, and perhaps learned his English there in his early life. The
narrative of travels between the years 1652 and 1664 was for some time the
property of Samuel Pepys, the well-known diarist, and Secretary of the
Admiralty to Charles II. and James II. He probably received it from Sir
George Cartaret, the Vice-Chamberlain of the King and Treasurer of the
Navy, for whom it was no doubt carefully copied out from his rough notes by
the author, So that it might, through him, be brought under the notice of
Charles II. Some years after the death of Pepys, in 1703, his collection of
manuscripts was dispersed and fell into the hands of various London
tradesmen, who bought parcels of it to use in their shops as waste-paper.
The most valuable portions were carefully reclaimed by the celebrated
collector, Richard Rawlinson, who in writing to his friend T. Rawlins,
from.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 25 of 424
Words from 6703 to 6976
of 117345
