e project of trade in Hudson Bay, but
during the Dutch war nothing could be done. The captain of the Dutch
ship _Caper_ had sent word of the French explorers to De Witt, the
great statesman. De Witt despatched a spy from Picardy, France, one
Eli Godefroy Touret, who chanced to know Groseillers, to meet the
explorers in London. Masking as Groseillers' nephew, Touret tried to
bribe both men to join the Dutch. Failing this, he attempted to
undermine their credit with the English by accusing Radisson and
Groseillers of counterfeiting money; but the English court refused to
be deceived, and Touret was imprisoned. Owing to the plague and the
war, two years passed without the vague promises of the English court
taking shape. Montague, the English ambassador to France, heard of the
explorers' feats, and wrote to Prince Rupert. Prince Rupert was a
soldier of fortune, who could enter into the spirit of the explorers.
He had fought on the losing side against Cromwell, and then taken to
the high seas to replenish broken fortunes by piracy. The wealth of
the beaver trade appealed to him. He gave all the influence of his
_prestige_ to the explorers' plans. By the spring of 1668 money enough
had been advanced to fit out two boats for Hudson Bay. In the _Eagle_,
with Captain Stannard, went Radisson; in the _Nonsuch_, with Captain
Zechariah Gillam of Boston, went Groseillers. North of Ireland furious
gales drove the ships apart. Radisson's vessel was damaged and driven
back to London; but his year was not wasted. It is likely that the
account of his first voyages was written while Groseillers was away.[5]
Sometime during his stay in London he married Mary Kirke, a daughter of
the Huguenot John Kirke, whose family had long ago gone from Boston and
captured Quebec.

Gillam's journal records that the _Nonsuch_ left Gravesend the 3d of
June, 1668, reached Resolution Island on August 4, and came to anchor
at the south of James Bay on September 29.[6] It was here that
Radisson had come overland five years before, when he thought that he
discovered a river flowing from the direction of the St. Lawrence. The
river was Nemisco. Groseillers called it Rupert in honor of his
patron. A palisaded fort was at once built, and named King Charles
after the English monarch. By December, the bay was locked in the
deathly silence of northern frost. Snow fell till the air became
darkened day after day, a ceaseless fall of muffling snow; t