Danger Apprehended to French Dominion—Intendant Talon—Fur Trade Extended Westward—News of the English Expedition Reaches Quebec—Sovereign Rights in Question—English Priority Established.

French activity.

Although neither the Governor, the Fur Company nor the officials of the Most Christian King at Quebec, had responded favourably to the proposals of Groseilliers, yet they were not long in perceiving that a radical change in their trade policy was desirable. Representations were made to M. Colbert and the French Court. It was even urged that France's North American dominions were in danger, unless a more positive and aggressive course were pursued with regard to extension. These representations, together with the knowledge that the Dutch on the south side of the St Lawrence and in the valley of the Hudson had unexpectedly acknowledged allegiance to the King of England, determined Lewis to evince a greater interest in Canadian affairs than he had done hitherto.

Mezy was recalled, to die soon afterwards; and Daniel de Remin, Seigneur de Courcelles, was despatched as Provincial Governor. A new office was created, that of Intendant of Justice, Police and Finance; and Jean Talon—a man of ability, experience and energy—was made the first Intendant. Immediately upon his arrival, he took steps to confirm the sovereignty of his master over the vast realms in the West; and to set up the royal standard in the region of the Great Lakes.

In 1668 Talon returned to France, taking with him one of those hardy bushrangers (coureurs de bois) who passed nearly the whole of their lives in the interior and in the company of the Hurons. This man seems to have cut a very picturesque figure. He had been scalped, and bore about his person many grim mutilations and disfigurements, to bear witness to his adventures amongst unfriendly tribes. He accompanied Talon in the capacity of servant or bodyguard, and appears to have had little difficulty in making himself an object of infinite interest to the lackeys and concierges of Paris. On the Intendant's return to Canada, this daring personage, Peray by name, is alluded to as Talon's most trusted adviser with regard to the western country and the tribes inhabiting it. In one of the Intendant's letters, dated February 24th, 1669, he writes that Peray had "penetrated among the western nations farther than any Frenchman; and had seen the copper mine on Lake Huron. This man offers to go to that mine and explore either by sea, or by the lake and river—such communication being supposed to exist between Canada and the South Sea—or to the Hudson's Bay."

French activity had never been so great in the new world as in the years between Groseilliers' departure from Quebec and the period when the English fur-traders first came in contact with the French on the shores of Hudson's Bay, thirteen years later.

In the summer of 1669, the active and intelligent Louis Joliet, with an outfit of 4,000 livres, supplied him by the Intendant, penetrated into an unknown region and exhibited the white standard of France before the eyes of the astonished natives.

This also was the period which witnessed the exploits of La Salle, and of Saint Lusson. Trade followed quickly on their heels. In March, 1670, five weeks before the charter was granted to the Great Company, a party of Jesuits arriving at Sault Ste. Marie found twenty-five Frenchmen trading there with the Indians. These traders reported that a most lucrative traffic had sprung up in that locality. Coincident with the tidings they thus conveyed to Talon, the Intendant learnt from some Algonquins who had come to Quebec to trade, that two European vessels had been seen in Hudson's Bay.

Colbert and the Company.

"After reflecting," he wrote to Colbert, "on all the nations that might have penetrated as far north as that, I can only fall back on the English, who, under the conduct of one named Groseilliers, in former times an inhabitant of Canada, might possibly have attempted that navigation, of itself not much known and not less dangerous. I design to send by land some men of resolution to invite the Kilistinons,[14] who are in great numbers in the vicinity of that Bay, to come down to see us as the Ottawas do, in order that we may have the first handling of what the savages bring us, who, acting as retail dealers between ourselves and those natives (i.e., the Kilistinons), make us pay for this roundabout way of three or four hundred leagues."

The rivalry of French and English north of the St. Lawrence had begun. With that rivalry began also from this moment that long series of disputes concerning the sovereignty of the whole northern territories, which has endured down to our own generation.

A much vexed controversy.

Few historical themes have ever been argued at greater length or more minutely than this—the priority of discovery, occupation, and active assumption of sovereignty over those lands surrounding Hudson's Bay, which for two centuries were to be held and ruled by the Hudson's Bay Company. The wisest jurists, the shrewdest intellects, the most painstaking students were destined to employ themselves for over a century in seeking to establish by historical evidence, by tradition and by deduction, the "rights" of the English or of the French to those regions.

A great deal of importance has been attached to the fact that in 1627 a charter had been granted by Lewis XIII. to a number of adventurers sent to discover new lands to the north of the River of St. Lawrence. The clause of the charter reads as follows:—"Le fort et habitation de Quebec, avec tout le pays de la Nouvelle France dite Canada, tant le long des Cotes depuis la Floride que les predecesseurs Rois de Sa Majeste ont fait habiter en rangeant les Cotes de la Mer jusqu'au Cercle Artique pour latitude, et de longitude depuis l'Ile de Terreneuve tirant a l'ouest au Grand Lac dit la Mer douce et au dela que de dans les terres, et le long des Rivieres qui y passant et se dechargent dans le fleuve dit St. Laurent, ou autrement la grande Riviere du Canada, et dans tous les autres fleuves qui se portent a la mer." But most writers have omitted to verify the fact that in this charter to the French Company, the only portions of land granted to the French Company are the lands or portions of lands which had already been occupied by the Kings of France, and the object of the charter was simply to give them an exclusive right of trade therein. Thus it was clearly indicated that the charter did not go further than the land occupied by the predecessors of Lewis XIV.

"New France was then understood to include the whole region of Hudson's Bay, as the maps and histories of the time, English and French, abundantly prove." This is a broad assertion, which is not supported by the early discoverers nor by the historians of that time. Charlevoix in his history described New France as being an exceedingly limited territory. There is in l'Escarbot a description which shows that at that time the whole territory known as New France extended but a few miles on each side of the St. Lawrence. Charlevoix says regretfully at that time that the giving up of this territory did not amount to much, as New France was circumscribed by very narrow limits on either side of the St Lawrence.

When an examination is made into the facts of the voyages and expeditions alleged to have been undertaken by the French prior to 1672, it is difficult to arrive at any but a certain conclusion—that the French claims had no foundation in fact.

It was then asserted, and long afterwards repeated, that Jean Bourdon, the Attorney-General in 1656, explored the entire coast of Labrador and entered Hudson's Bay. For this assertion one is unable to find any historical support; certainly no record of any kind exists of such a voyage. There is a record in 1655, it is true, that Sieur Bourdon, then Attorney-General, was authorized to make a discovery of Mer du Nord; and in order to comply with that arrÉt of the Sovereign Council at Quebec, he actually made an attempt at such discovery. Bourdon left Quebec on May 2nd, 1657, and an entry in the records proves his return on August 11th of the same year. It is manifestly impossible that such a voyage could have been accomplished between these dates. But a reference to this business in the Jesuit relations of the succeeding year is sufficiently convincing.[15]

It is there recorded that on the "11th of August, there appeared the barque of M. Bourdon, which having descended the Grand River on the north side, sailed as far as the 55th degree, where it encountered a great bank of ice, which caused it to return, having lost two Hurons that it had taken as guides. The Esquimaux savages of the north massacred them and wounded a Frenchman with three arrows and one cut with a knife."

Another statement employed to strengthen the French claim to sovereignty was, that Father Dablon and Sieur de Valiere were ordered in 1661 to proceed to the country about Hudson's Bay, and that they accordingly went thither. All accounts available to the historian agree that the worthy father never reached the Bay.

La Couture's mythical voyage.

Another assertion equally long-lived and equally ill-founded, was to the effect that one Sieur La Couture, with five men, proceeded overland to the Bay, and there took possession of it in the King's name. There is no account of this voyage in Charlevoix, or in the "Relations des Jesuites," or in the memoir furnished by M. de Callieres to the Marquis de Denonville. This memoir, which was penned in 1685, or twenty-one years after the time of which it treated, set forth that La Couture made the journey for purposes of discovery. Under the circumstances, particularly owing to the strong necessity under which the French were placed to find some shadow of right for their pretensions, M. de Callieres' memoir has been declared untrustworthy by competent authorities.

In 1663, Sieur Duquet, the King's Attorney for Quebec, and Jean L'Anglois, a Canadian colonist, are said to have gone to Hudson's Bay by order of Sieur D'Argenson, and to have renewed possession by setting up the King's arms there a second time. Such an order could hardly have been given by D'Argenson, because he had left Canada on September 16th, 1671, two years before this pretended order was given to Sieur Duquet.

French falsehoods and fallacies.

It has been attempted to explain the silence of the "Relations of the Jesuits" concerning Bourdon's voyage, by asserting that they were naturally anxious that members of their own society should be the pioneers in discovery, and that therefore many important discoveries were never brought to light in their relations because they were not made by Jesuits. It is enough to say that such an argument cannot apply to the voyage of Dablon. He was a Jesuit, a man in whom the interests of the society were centred, and if a voyage had been made by him, no doubt a great deal of prominence would have been given to it. On the contrary, in the third volume of the "Jesuit Relations," 1662, we find this Jesuit, Father Dablon, describing an unsuccessful voyage that he made. There can be no doubt that he attempted a voyage. A portion of this relation is written by himself, and he calls it, "Journal du Premier Voyage Fait Vers la Mer du Nord." The first portion of it is most important and conclusive, as showing that De Callieres, in his memoir to M. De Seignely, twenty-one years afterwards, must have been speaking from hearsay, and without any authentic documents on which to base his assertions. Dablon says that the highest point which he did reach was Nekauba, a hundred leagues from Tadoussac, and that subsequently he returned; and this is from a report of this journey written by himself. Some have attempted to raise a doubt as to the identity of the Dablon in De Callieres' memoir, with the Dablon of the "Relations des Jesuites." But at the end of one of the volumes is a complete list of all the Jesuits, pioneers both of the faith and in the way of discovery, and there is only one Dablon mentioned. Another inaccuracy of this memoir is as to the trip of Duquet, under an order said to have been given by Sieur D'Argenson. There can be no doubt that at the time this pretended order was given, D'Argenson had left Canada.

On the whole it may be as well for the reader to dismiss the French pretensions. They are no longer of interest, save to the hair-splitting student of the country's annals: but in their day they gave rise to a wilderness of controversy, through which we in the twentieth century may yet grope vainly for the light. For all practical purposes the question of priority was settled forever by the Ontario Boundary Commission of 1884. Let us turn rather to behold to what account the Honourable Adventurers turned their new property.