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Updated: June 2, 2025
Under that odium the great discoverer's name has rested for nearly three centuries; yet the accusation of theft is without a grain of truth. Radisson and Groseillers were to obtain half the proceeds of the voyage in 1682-1683. Neither the explorers nor Jean Groseillers, who had privately invested 500 pounds in the venture, ever received one sou.
Affairs were at this stage when Radisson arrived with news that he had transferred his services to the English. Young Groseillers was amazed. Letters to his mother show that he surrendered his charge with a very ill grace. "Do not forget," Radisson urged him, "the injuries that France has inflicted on your father." Young Groseillers' mother, Marguerite Hayet, was in want at Three Rivers.
The Indians refused to help either the Jesuits or the French, and it was impossible for the white voyageurs to keep up the pace in the dash across an unknown portage through the dark. The French adventurers turned back for Montreal. Of the white men, Radisson and Groseillers alone went on.
Anne's bo'swain and the mutinous crew of the Ste. Anne were marched aboard the St. Pierre. Then M. Radisson's plan became plain. The other ship was the better. M. de Radisson was determined that at least one crew should reach the bay. Besides, as he had half-laughingly insinuated, perhaps he knew better than Chouart Groseillers of the Ste. Anne how to manage mutinous pirates. Of the St.
La Chesnaye had saved his furs; but the half of the cargo that was the share of Radisson and Groseillers had been seized at Quebec. On arriving in France, Groseillers presented a memorial of their wrong to the court. Probably because England and France were allied by treaty at that time, the petition for redress was ignored. Groseillers was now an old man.
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.
See State Papers, Canadian Archives, 1676, January 26, Whitehall: Memorial of the Hudson Bay Company complaining of Albanel, a Jesuit, attempting to seduce Radisson and Groseillers from the company's services; in absence of ships pulling down the British ensign and tampering with the Indians.
Groseillers gave up the struggle and retired for the time to his family at Three Rivers. At Quebec, in 1676, Radisson heard of others everywhere reaping where he had sown. Jolliet and La Salle were preparing to push the fur trade of New France westward of the Great Lakes, where Radisson had penetrated twenty years previously.
France had not been idle. When it was too late, the country awakened to the injustice done Radisson and Groseillers. While Radisson was still in Boston, all restrictions were taken from the beaver trade, except the tax of one-fourth to the revenue.
Upon returning, he found that Jean Groseillers had come back to the fort with news of more cannonading farther inland. Radisson rightly guessed that the ship had sailed up Nelson River, firing cannon as she went to notify Indians for trade. Picking out three intrepid men, Radisson crossed the marsh by a creek which the Indian canoes used, to go to Nelson River.
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