fell dark over England. The fierce struggle of the Great Rebellion
ended for a time all adventure overseas. When it had passed, the days
of bold sea-farers gazing westward from the decks of their little
caravels over the glittering ice of the Arctic for a pathway to the
Orient were gone, and the first period of northern adventure had come
to an end.

{34}

CHAPTER II

HEARNE'S OVERLAND JOURNEY TO THE NORTHERN OCEAN

In course of time the inaccurate knowledge and vague hopes of the early
navigators were exchanged for more definite ideas in regard to the
American continent. The progress of discovery along the Pacific side
of the continent and the occupation by the Spaniards of the coast of
California led to a truer conception of the immense breadth of North
America. Voyages across the Pacific to the Philippines revealed the
great distance to be traversed in order to reach the Orient by the
western route. At the same time the voyages of Captain Fox and his
contemporary Captain James had proved Hudson Bay to be an enclosed sea.
In consequence, for about a century no further attempt was made to find
a North-West Passage.

In the meantime the English came into connection with the Far North in
a different way. {35} The early explorers had brought home the news of
the extraordinary wealth of America in fur-bearing animals. Soon the
fur trade became the most important feature of the settlements on the
American coast, and from both New England and New France enormous
quantities of furs were exported to Europe. This commerce was with the
Indians, and everything depended upon a ready and convenient access to
the interior. Thus it came about that when the peculiar configuration
of Hudson Bay was known to combine an access to the remotest parts of
the continent with a short sea passage to Europe, its shores naturally
offered themselves as the proper scene of the trade in furs. The great
rivers that flowed into the bay--the Severn, the Nelson, the Albany,
the Rupert--offered a connection in all directions with the dense
forests and the broad plains of the interior.

The two competing nations both found their way to the great bay, the
English by sea through Hudson Strait, the French overland by the
portage way from the upper valley of the Ottawa. So it happened that
there was established by royal charter in 1670 that notable body whose
corporate title is 'The Governor and Company of Adventurers of {36}
England