plorers, having
returned to Three Rivers, secretly took passage in a fishing schooner
bound for Anticosti, whence they went south to Isle Perce to meet the
ship they expected from Rochelle. But again they were to be
disappointed; a Jesuit just out from France informed them that no ship
would come. What now should the explorers do? They could not go back to
Three Rivers, for their attempt to make another journey without a
licence rendered them liable to punishment. They went to Cape Breton,
and from there to the English at Port Royal in Nova Scotia.

At Port Royal they found a Boston captain, Zachariah Gillam, who plied
in vessels to and fro from the American Plantations to England. Gillam
offered his vessel for a voyage to Hudson Bay; but the season was late,
and when the vessel reached the rocky walls of Labrador the captain lost
heart and refused to enter the driving straits. The ship returned and
landed the explorers in Boston. They then clubbed the last of their
fortunes together and entered into an agreement with shipowners of
Boston to take two ships to Hudson Bay on their own account in the
following spring. But, while fishing to obtain provisions for the
voyage, one of the vessels was wrecked, and, instead of sailing for the
North Sea, Radisson and Groseilliers found themselves in Boston involved
in a lawsuit for the value of the lost ship. When they emerged from this
they were destitute.

CHAPTER IV

THE 'ADVENTURERS OF ENGLAND'

In Boston the commissioners of His Majesty King Charles II were
reviewing the affairs of the American Plantations. One of the
commissioners was Sir George Carteret, and when he sailed for England in
August 1665 he was accompanied by the two French explorers. It gives one
a curiously graphic insight into the conditions of ocean travel in those
days to learn that the royal commissioner's ship was attacked, boarded,
and sunk by a Dutch filibuster. Carteret and his two companions landed
penniless in Spain, but, by pawning clothes and showing letters of
credit, they reached England early in 1666. At this time London was in
the ravages of the Great Plague, and King Charles had sought safety from
infection at Oxford. Thither Radisson and Groseilliers were taken and
presented to the king; and we may imagine how their amazing stories of
adventure beguiled his weary hours. The jaded king listened and
marvelled, and ordered that forty shillings a week should be paid to the
two explor