ncroaching British were working their way into every open water in
America. The French gallantly disputed their advance in Hudson Bay and
won several {63} actions, of which the best victory was Iberville's in
1697, with his single ship, the _Pelican_, against three opponents. In
Labrador and Newfoundland the British ousted all rivals from
territorial waters, except from the French Shore. The 'Bluenose' Nova
Scotians crept on from port to port. The Yankees were as supreme at
home as the other British were in Hudson Bay, though on occasion both
were daringly challenged. All the French had was the line of the St
Lawrence; and that was increasingly threatened, both at its mouth and
along the Great Lakes.

The British had in their service a powerful trading corporation. The
Hudson's Bay Company was flourishing even in the seventeenth century.
In one sense it was purely maritime, as its posts were all on the Bay
shore, while the French traded chiefly in the hinterlands. The
Company's fleet, usually three or four ships, sailed regularly from
Gravesend or Portsmouth about June 1, rounded the Orkneys and made for
Hudson Bay. The return cargo of furs arrived home in October. This
annual voyage continues to the present day.[3]

{64}

As Hudson Bay was the place for fur, so Newfoundland, and all the
waters round it, was the place for fish. 'Dogs, fogs, bogs, and
codfish,' was the old half-jeering description of its products.
Standing in the gateway of Canada, Newfoundland was always a menace to
New France. Thirty years before Champlain founded Quebec a traveller
notes that, among the fishing fleets off Newfoundland, 'the English
rule all there.' In other quarters, too, there was a menace to France.
The British colonies were always feeling their way along the coast as
well as along the Great Lakes. In spite of ordinances on both sides,
forbidding trade between colonies of different powers, little trading
craft, mostly British, would creep in with some enticing contraband,
generally by way of Lake Champlain.

[Illustration: A FRENCH FRIGATE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY From Winsor's
America]

The first attempt in the English colonies to trade with Canada by way
of the open sea was made in 1658, when Captain John Perel sailed from
New York for Quebec in the French barque _St Jean_, and was wrecked on
Anticosti, with the total loss of a cargo of sugar and tobacco. The
sloop _Mary_ managed to reach Quebec in 1701 with a