CHAPTER XI

1685-1686

WHEREIN THE REASONS FOR YOUNG CHOUART GROSEILLERS’ MYSTERIOUS MESSAGE TO OUR GOOD FRIEND “PÉRÉ” ARE EXPLAINED—THE FOREST ROVERS OF NEW FRANCE RAID THE BAY BY SEA AND LAND—TWO SHIPS SUNK—PÉRÉ, THE SPY, SEIZED AND SENT TO ENGLAND

It isnow necessary to follow the fleet of seven ships—four large frigates, three sloops for inland waters—to the bay. Radisson goes as general superintendent with Captain Bond and Captain Lucas to Nelson—the port farthest north. In these ships, too, go young Chouart Groseillers and his French companions, bound for four years to the Hudson’s Bay Company, albeit they have received and sent mysterious messages to and from “our good friend, Monsieur Jan Péré,” of Quebec, swearing they will meet him at some secret rendezvous or “perish in the attempt.” What Chouart Groseillers and his friends—sworn to serve the English company—mean by secret oaths to meet French bush-rovers from Quebec—remains to be seen.Young Mike Grimmington is second mate on Captain Outlaw’s ship,The Success, destined for the fort south of Nelson—Albany, where bluff old Governor Sargeant holds sway from his bastioned stronghold on the island at the mouth of Albany River. Bridgar—quondam governor at Nelson—now goes with the small sloops bound for the bottom of the bay—Moose and Charlton Island and Rupert River.

No Robin Hoods of legendary lore ever lived in more complete security than the Gentlemen Adventurers of Hudson Bay. Radisson—the one man to be feared as a rival—had been compelled by the French Court to join them. So had his followers. The forts on the bay seemed immune from attack. To the south, a thousand miles of juniper swamp and impassable cataracts separated the English fur traders from the fur traders of New France. To the west, was impenetrable, unknown wilderness. To the north, the realm of iron cold. The Adventurers of Hudson Bay slumbered secure on the margin of their frozen sea. Rupert and Moose—the forts of the south—yearly collected 5,000 beaver pelts each, not counting as many again of other rare furs. Albany—where the bay turns north—gave a yearly quota of 3,500, and Nelson sent out as much as $100,000 worth of beaver in a single year. TheAdventurers had found a gold mine rich as Spanish Eldorado.

To be sure, the French fur traders, who had been led to the bay by Radisson once, would now be able to find the way there for themselves, but the French fur traders demanded four beavers in barter where the English asked only two, and two French ships that had come up under Lamartiniére commissioned “to seize Radisson,” could neither find Radisson nor an Indian who would barter them a single pelt. They dare not land at Nelson, for it was now English. Reefing sails, Lamartiniére’s ships spent the summer of ’85 dodging the ice floes and hiding round Digges’ Island at the inside end of the straits for reasons that young Chouart Groseillers might have explained if he would.

It was July before the fleet of Hudson’s Bay boats reached the straits. Ice jam and tide-rip had presently scattered the fleet. As usual, the smaller vessels showed their heels to danger and slipping along the lee edge of the floes, came to the open water of the bay first.The Happy Return, under Captain Bond with Monsieur Radisson, Monsieur Chouart and his comrades;The Success, under Captain Outlaw;The Merchant Perpetuana, under Captain Hume, with mates Smithsend and Mike Grimmington looking anxiously over decks at the tumult oframming ice that swept past—came worming their way laboriously through the ice floes, small sails only out, grappling irons hooked to the floating icepans, cables of iron strength hauling and pulling the frigates up to the ice, with crews out to their armpits in ice slush ready to loose and sheer from the danger of undertow when the tide ripple came.

On July 27, with the crews forespent and the ships badly battered, the three emerged on the open water of Hudson Bay and steered to rest for the night under shelter of the rocky shores off Digges’ Island. Like ghosts from the gloom, shadows took form in the night mist—two ships with foreign sails on this lonely sea, where all other ships were forbidden. In a trice, the deathly silence of the sea is broken by the roar of cannonading. It is Monsieur Radisson, on whose head there is a price, who realizes the situation first and with a shout that they are trapped by French raiders—by Lamartiniére—bids Captain Bond flee for his life. Captain Bond needs no urgings.The Happy Return’ssails are out like the wings of a frightened bird and she is off like a terrified quarry pursued by a hawk. Nor does Captain Outlaw onThe Successwait for argument. With all candles instantly put out, he, too, steers for the hiding of darkness on open water.The Perpetuanais left alone wedged between Lamartiniére’stwo French ships. Hooked gang planks seize her on both sides in a death grapple. Captain Hume, Mates Smithsend and Mike Grimmington with half a dozen others are surrounded, overpowered, disarmed, fettered and clapped under hatches of the victorious ships. Before morning,The Perpetuanahad been scuttled of her cargo. Fourteen of her crew have been bayoneted and thrown overboard. A month later, cargo and vessel and captives are received with acclaim at Quebec. Captain Hume is sent home to France in December on a man-of-war to lie in a dungeon of Rochelle till he can obtain ransom. So are Mr. Richard Alio and Andrew Stuckey—seamen. The rest are to lie in the cells below Château St. Louis, Quebec, on fare of bread and water for six months.

Montagu House, Hayes River, whereThe DobbsandThe Californiawintered in 1747—photographed from Henry Ellis’s Voyages.

Mike Grimmington is held and “tortured” to compel him to betray the secrets of navigation at the different harbors of Hudson Bay, but Mate Grimmington tells no tales; for he learns that rumors of raid are in the air at Quebec. Though England and France are at peace, the fur traders of Quebec are asking commission for one Chevalier de Troyes with the brothers of the family Le Moyne, to raid the bay, fire the forts, massacre the English. Smithsend by secret messenger sends a letter with warnings of the designs to the Hudson’s Bay Company in England, and Smithsendfor his pains is sold with his comrades into slavery in Martinique, whence he escapes before spring. Grimmington is held prisoner for two years before a direct order from the French Court sets him free. Other things, Grimmington hears in Quebec of the French on the bay.

All unsuspecting of plots at Quebec and pirate attacks on the Company’s ships, the governors of the different forts on the bay awaited the coming of the ships. From July, it was customary to keep harbor lights out on the sand-bars, and station sentinels day and night to watch for the incoming fleet. Secret codes of signals had been left the year before with the forts. If the incoming ships did not display these signals, the sentinels were ordered to cut the harbor buoys, put out the lights, and give the alarm. If the signals were correct, cannon roared a welcome, flags were run up, and pilots went out in small boats to guide the ships in through sand-bars and bowlder reefs.

At Albany, Governor Sargeant, whose wife and family were now with him at the fort—had ordered a sort of lookout, or crow’s-nest, built of scaffolding, on a hill above the fort. As far as known, not a single Englishman had up to this time penetrated the wilds west of the bay. One Robert Sanford had been ordered this very year to “go up into thecountry,” but fear of French bush-rovers made him report that such a course was very unsafe. It would be wiser and safer for the Company to give handsome presents to the Indian chiefs. This would induce them to bring their tribes down to the bay. So the sentinel at Albany could hardly believe his senses one morning when from the eerie height of his lookout he espied three men—three white men, steering a canoe down the swift, tumultuous current of the rain-swollen river. They were comingnotfrom the sea, but from the Upcountry. This was a contingency the cutting of harbor buoys had not provided against. The astounded sentinel ran to Sargeant with the alarm. Cannon were manned and Governor Sargeant took his stand in the gate of the palisaded walls.

Beaching their canoe, the three white men marched jauntily up to the governor. The shaggy eyes of the bluff old governor took in the fact that the newcomers were French—Frenchmen dressed as bush-lopers, but with the manners of gentlemen, introducing themselves with the debonair gayety of their race, Monsieur Péré, Monsieur Coultier de Comporté and a third, whose name is lost to the records. Old Governor Sargeant scratched his burly beard. England and France were at peace, very much at peace when France had sent Radisson back;and he must treat the visitors with courtesy; but what were gentlemen doing dressed as bush-rovers? Hunting—taking their pleasure where they found it—knights of the wildwoods—says my good friend, Jan Péré, doffing his fur capote with a bow. Governor Sargeant hails good friend Péré into the fort, to a table loaded with game and good wine and the hospitality of white men lonely for companionship as a sail at sea. The wine passes freely and stories pass freely, stories of the hunt and the voyage and of Monsieur Radisson and his friends, whom the Governor expects back this year—soon, very soon, any day now the ships may come.

But at base, every Hudson’s Bay Company man is a trader. Governor Sargeant evincing no zealous desire to extend his hospitality longer, Monsieur Péré tactfully evinces no desire to stay. The gay adventurers aver they are going to coast along the shore—that alkali shore between the main coast of cedar swamps and the outer reef of bowlders—where good sport among feathered game is to be expected. Once they are out of sight from Albany, the three Frenchmen rest on their paddles and confer. They had not counted on leavingquiteso soon. Still gay as schoolboys on an escapade, that night as they sleep on shore under the stars, they take good care to leave their canoe so that the high tide carriesit out to sea. What is to be done now—a thousand miles by swamp from the nearest French fort? Presto—go back to the English fort, of course; and back they trudge to Albany with their specious farce of misadventure.

Meanwhile, Outlaw onThe Success, had arrived at Albany with the tale of Lamartiniére’s raid and the loss ofThe Perpetuana. Before Monsieur Jan Péré can feign astonishment—he is dumfounded at the news, is Monsieur Péré—Governor Sargeant has clapped irons on his wrists and irons on his feet. The fair-tongued spy is cast manacled into the bastion that served as prison at Albany, and his two comrades are transported across to Charlton Island to earn their living hunting till they have learned that no one may tamper with the fur trade of the English adventurers. What welcome Chouart Groseillers and his French comrades received—is not told in Hudson’s Bay annals. They go north to Nelson for the next four years, then drop from the pay lists of the Company, and reappear as fur traders of New France. It would hardly be stretching historic fact to infer that these daring French youths took to the tall timbers.

Over on Charlton Island, Péré’s comrades hunted as to the wildwoods born; hunted so diligently that by September they had store enough of food to stockthem for the winter. By September the boats that met at Charlton Island had sailed. No one was left to watch the Frenchmen. They hastily constructed for themselves a large canoe, loaded it with their provisions, set out under cover of night and reached the south shore of James Bay, keeping well away from Moose and Rupert River. Then they paddled for life upstream toward New France. By October, ice formed, cutting the canoe. They killed a moose, cured the buckskin above punk smoke, made themselves snowshoes and marched overland seven hundred miles to the French fort at Michilimackinac. Word ran like wildfire from Lake Superior to Quebec—Jan Péré was held in prison at Albany. These were the rumors Mike Grimmington and Richard Smithsend heard from their prison cells under Château St. Louis. If these two spies can march overland in midwinter, cannot a band of bush-rovers march overland to the rescue of Péré? France and England are at peace; but Albany holds Péré in prison, and Quebec holds Mike Grimmington and Smithsend in the cellar of the Château St. Louis.

Up on the bay, old Sargeant was puzzled what to do with Péré. All told, there were only eighty-nine men on Hudson Bay at this time. It was decided that Outlaw should remain for the winter withSargeant, but take Péré up to Captains Bond and Lucas at Nelson to be shipped home to England, where the directors could decide on his fate. On October 27, Bond and Lucas arrived in London, and on October 29, the minutes of the Company report “one Monsieur Jan Péré sent home by Governor Sargeant as a French spy.” The full report ofThe Perpetuana’sloss was laid before the Company on the 30th. On November 4, Monsieur Péré is examined by a committee. Within a week the suave spy suffers such a change of heart, he applies on November 11 for the privilege of joining the Company. Before the Company have given answer to that request, comes a letter from Captain Hume dated December 13, Rochelle, France, giving a full account of the wreck ofThe Perpetuana, the indignities suffered at Quebec, stating that he is in a dungeon awaiting the Company’s ransom. Captain Hume is ordered to pay what ransom is necessary and come to England at once, but it is manifest that the French spy, Jan Péré, must be held for the safety of the other English prisoners at Quebec. The Company lodges a suit of £5,000 damages against him, which will keep Péré in gaol till he can find bail, and when he sends word to know the reason for such outrage, the minutes of the Company glibly put on record “that he hath damnifiedthe company very considerably.” Unofficially, he is told that the safety of his life depends on the safety of those English prisoners held at Quebec. In January arrives Captain Hume, putting on record his affidavit of the wreck ofThe Perpetuana. In February, 1686, comes that letter from Smithsend which he smuggled out of his prison in Quebec, “ye contents to be kept private and secret,” warning the Company that raiders are leaving Canada overland for the bay. By March, Jan Péré is on his knees to join the Company. The Company lets him stay on his knees in prison. All is bustle at Hudson’s Bay House fitting out frigates for the next summer. Eighteen extra men are to be sent to Albany, twelve to Moose, six to Rupert. Monsieur Radisson is instructed to inspect the large guns sent over from Holland to be sent out to the bay. Monsieur Radisson advises the Company to fortify Nelson especially strongly, for hence come the best furs.

The Company is determined to be ready for the raid, but the straits will not be clear of ice before July.

Notes on Chapter XI.—The contents of this chapter are taken from the Minutes of the Company, Hudson’s Bay House. All French records state that Hume was killed in the loss ofThe Perpetuana. As I have his letter from Rochelle, dated December, 1685, this is a mistake. He reached England, January, 1686, and his affidavit is in Hudson’s Bay House. Captain Bond was severely censured by the Company for desertingThe Perpetuana. If he had not fled, the French would without a doubt have dispatched Radisson on the spot. Some of the men ofThe Perpetuanaspent two years imprisoned in Quebec. Up to this time, by wreck and raid, including sloops as well as frigates—the Company had lost thirteen vessels. Record of Péré is found also in French state documents of this date. Smithsend escaped to England, February 14, 1686.

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