present of seven
musquash skins was now given Mr Young for having induced Radisson to
resume his services.

Radisson was requested to make terms with the young Frenchman, but this
was not such an easy matter. Some one suggested that Jean Chouart should
follow the example of his uncle and marry an English wife. Jean shrugged
his shoulders. In a letter to his mother at Three Rivers he wrote: 'I am
offered proposals of marriage to which I will not listen. I would
leave, but they hold back my pay, and orders have been given to arrest
me in case I try. Cause it to be well known that I never intended to
follow the English. I have been forced to this by my uncle's subterfuge.
Assure M. Du Lhut of my humble services. I will have the honour of
seeing him as soon as I can. Tell the same to M. Pere and all our good
friends.' To M. Comporte he writes: 'I will be at the place you desire
me to go, or perish.' As M. Du Lhut had been dispatched by the Company
of the North with the knowledge of the governor of Quebec to intercept
Indians going down to the English on Hudson Bay, and M. Pere and M.
Comporte were suave diplomats and spies in his service, it may be
guessed that the French passed secret messages into the hands of young
Jean Chouart in London, and that he passed messages back to them. At all
events, from being doggedly resistant to all overtures, he suddenly
became complaisant in March of 1685, and took out papers of
'deninization,' or naturalization, in preference to the oath of
fidelity, and engaged with the English Company at L100 a year. He was
given another L100 to fit him out, and his four comrades were engaged
at from L45 to L80 a year. How could the gentlemen of the Company guess
that young Jean was betraying them to the Company of the North in
Canada, where a mine was being laid to blow up their prosperity?

The Hudson's Bay Company declared dividends of fifty per cent, and
chartered seven vessels for the season of 1685--some from a goldsmith,
Sir Stephen Evance; and bespoke my Lord Churchill as next governor in
place of James, Duke of York, who had become King James II.

CHAPTER VI

THE GREAT OVERLAND RAID

The Company now had permanent forts at Rupert, Albany, and Moose rivers
on James Bay, and at the mouth of the Hayes river on the west coast. The
very year that Churchill was appointed governor and took his place at
the board of the Governing Committee, a small sloop had sailed as far
north as Churc