"War with the world and peace with England."—Spanish.
We should expect to find a race of sailors pushing discovery on their own element.
With English mariners of the seventeenth century, the belief in a North-west Passage to India was an inherited faith. Cabot led discovery in this direction. It became, almost exclusively, a field for the brave and adventurous of this nation who, from year to year, spreading their tattered sails to the frozen blasts of the Polar Sea, grimly fought their way on from cape to headland, in desperate venture, lured by the vain hope of finding the open waters of their dreams lying just beyond them. It is a story of daring and peril unsurpassed. Many a noble ship and gallant crew have gone down while attempting to solve those mysteries which the hand of God would seem forever to have sealed up from the knowledge of man.
Among others the brave and ill-fated Henry Hudson,[1] in 1610, sailed through the straits leading into the bay now bearing his name, where his mutinous crew wickedly abandoned him to die of cold or hunger, or both.
Afterward, Hudson's Bay was repeatedly visited by English navigators whose discoveries all went to confirm the prevailing belief in an open polar sea. One of them even took a letter from his own king for the Emperor of Japan. In view of the suffering to which all were alike subject, these "frost-biting voyages" might be said to show more heroism than sound practical wisdom, yet with the riches of the Indies spread out before their fancy, and all England to applaud their deeds, the best of England's sailors were always ready to peril life and limb for the prize. All who came back told the same tale,—of seas sheeted in ice, suns that never set, lands where nothing grew, cold so extreme that all nature seemed but a mockery of the all-wise design of the Creator Himself.
Sir Thomas Button followed up Hudson's discoveries in 1612. He wintered at the mouth of Nelson's River, so named by him, after finding farther progress to the westward barred by the coast, where he had hoped to find it opening before him.
It was soon found that the bleak and desolate region enclosing Hudson's Bay was rich in fur-bearing animals, whose skins bore a great price in Europe, and the reports brought back from that far-off land gave a certain Frenchman named Grosselier the idea of planting a fur-trading colony there. He at once went to the minister with his plan. The minister, however, would not listen to him. Grosselier then went to Prince Rupert,[2] who was staying at Paris, to ask for the aid he wanted. Struck with the scheme, the prince became its patron. A ship was sent out, with Grosselier, in 1668, which reached the head of James' Bay,[3] where Fort Charles was built. The next year, Prince Rupert, and seventeen others, were incorporated into a company, with power granted them to make settlements and carry on trade in Hudson's Bay.
In this way the since famous Hudson's Bay Company obtained a monopoly of the fur-trade of all that region, which afterward proved so valuable to it. Its powers were most ample. It could hold and convey land, fit out ships, erect forts, or make war with the peoples of that country, but all this was to be done in its character as a trading-company; and though it had a resident governor, the central authority was kept in the company, in London, who continued to direct its affairs.
In the earlier years of its existence the Hudson's Bay Company had a hard struggle for life. We know that French traders formerly had dealings with the natives of that dreary inland sea. Jealousy now prompted them to try to drive the English thence by force, and so get rid of their rivalry. To this end repeated attacks were made upon the English factories,[4] which were taken and retaken, first by one and then by another assailant. Even in time of peace the French had not scrupled to assault these remote posts, so unwilling were Canadians to see the English gain a foothold in that quarter.
These invasions were quieted at last by the treaty of Utrecht (1713), which left the English in possession of what they had battled with foes of every sort to secure for themselves.
Communication had with the natives, who were nomads, taught the English how to make distant journeys, and gradually, with their aid, to penetrate farther and farther into the interior. But to live in the country at all, they had, in a great measure, to adapt themselves to the natives' way of life, and to make journeys they had to adopt the rude conveyances found in use among them.
[1] Henry Hudson. The same who discovered and named Hudson River of New York.
[2] Prince Rupert, of Bavaria, commanded the cavalry of Charles I. during the Civil War (1642): after the Restoration he devoted himself to scientific pursuits.
[3] James' Bay. Like Davis, Baffin, Hudson, etc., the name is that of an arctic navigator. It opens at the bottom of Hudson's Bay.
[4] The English Factories, at that time, were Forts Nelson, Albany, Hayes and Rupert.