oldiers who had heard
the noise dashed to Groseillers' aid. The Indians threw down their
weapons and confessed all: the Englishmen of the ship had promised the
band a barrel of powder to massacre the French. Jean took his foot
from the Indian's throat and kicked him out of the fort. The English
outnumbered the French; so Jean removed his fort farther from the bay,
among the Indians, where the English could not follow. To keep the
warriors about him, he offered to house and feed them for the winter.
This protected him from the attacks of the English. In the spring
Indians came to the French with pelts. Jean was short of firearms; so
he bribed the Indians to trade their peltries to the English for guns,
and to retrade the guns to him for other goods. It was a stroke worthy
of Radisson himself, and saved the little French fort. The English
must have suspected the young trader's straits, for they again paid
warriors to attack the French; but Jean had forestalled assault by
forming an alliance with the Assiniboines, who came down Hayes River
from Lake Winnipeg four hundred strong, and encamped a body-guard
around the fort. Affairs were at this stage when Radisson arrived with
news that he had transferred his services to the English.

Young Groseillers was amazed.[5] 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.[6] It was memory of her that now turned the scales with
the young man. He would turn over the furs to Radisson for the English
Company, if Radisson would take care of the far-away mother at Three
Rivers. The bargain was made, and the two embraced. The surrender of
the French furs to the English Company has been represented as
Radisson's crowning treachery. 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. The furs at Port Nelson--or Fort
Bourbon--belonged to the Frenchmen, to do what they pleased with them.
The act of the enthusiast is often tainted with folly. That Radisson
turned over twenty thousand bea