On
Their Return, The Narrative States, "He Made My Brother Prisoner For Not
Having Obeyed His Orders; He Fines Us
L. 4,000 to make a fort at the three
rivers, telling us for all manner of satisfaction that he
Would give us
leave to put our coat of armes upon it; and moreover L. 6,000 for the
country, saying that wee should not take it so strangely and so bad, being
wee were inhabitants and did intend to finish our days in the same country
with our relations and friends.... Seeing ourselves so wronged, my brother
did resolve to go and demand justice in France." Failing to get
restitution, they resolved to go over to the English. They went early in
1665 to Port Royal, Nova Scotia, and from thence to New England, where they
engaged an English or New England ship for a trading adventure into
Hudson's Straits in 61 deg. north.
This expedition was attempted because Radisson and Des Groseilliers, on
their last journey to Lake Superior, "met with some savages on the lake of
Assiniboin, and from them they learned that they might go by land to the
bottom of Hudson's Bay, where the English had not been yet, at James Bay;
upon which they desired them to conduct them thither, and the savages
accordingly did it. They returned to the upper lake the same way they
came, and thence to Quebec, where they offered the principal merchants to
carry ships to Hudson's Bay; but their project was rejected. Des
Groseilliers then went to France in hopes of a more favorable hearing at
Court; but after presenting several memorials and spending a great deal of
time and money, he was answered as he had been at Quebec, and the project
looked upon as chimerical." [Footnote: Oldmixon, Vol. I. p. 548.] This
voyage to Hudson's Straits proved unremunerative. "Wee had knowledge and
conversation with the people of those parts, but wee did see and know that
there was nothing to be done unlesse wee went further, and the season of
the year was far spent by the indiscretion of our Master." Radisson
continues: "Wee were promissed two shipps for a second voyage." One of
these ships was sent to "the Isle of Sand, there to fish for Basse to make
oyle of it," and was soon after lost.
In New England, in the early part of the year 1665, Radisson and Des
Groseilliers met with two of the four English Commissioners who were sent
over by Charles II in 1664 to settle several important questions in the
provinces of New York and New England. They were engaged in the prosecution
of their work in the different governments from 1664 to 1665/6. The two
Frenchmen, it appears, were called upon in Boston to defend themselves in a
lawsuit instituted against them in the courts there, for the annulling of
the contract in the trading adventure above mentioned, whereby one of the
two ships contracted for was lost.
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