am arrived
on one of the Company's ships. The Frenchmen were suspected of
treachery, and Gillam suggested that they should return to England and
explain what seemed to need explaining.

The Admiralty records for 1674 contain mention of Captain Gillam's
arrival from Hudson Bay on the _Shaftesbury Pink_ with 'a French Jesuit,
a little ould man, and an Indian, a very lusty man.' This Jesuit could
not have been Albanel, for in the French archives is conclusive proof
that Albanel returned to Quebec. The 'little ould man' must have been
another Jesuit found by Gillam at the Bay.

The winter of 1673-74 found Radisson and Groseilliers back in England
pressing the directors of the Company for better terms. The Governing
Committee first required oaths of fealty. Conferences were multiplied
and prolonged; but still Radisson and Groseilliers refused to go back to
the Bay until something was done. On June 29, 1674, the Governing
Committee unanimously voted that 'there be allowed to Mr Radisson L100
per annum in consideration of services, out of which shall be deducted
what hath already been paid him; and if it pleases God to bless the
Company with good success, hereafter that they come to be in a
prosperous condition, then they will reassume consideration.'
'Prosperous condition!' At this time the shareholders were receiving
dividends of fifty and one hundred per cent.

Now, in Radisson's pockets were offers from Colbert, the great minister
at the French Court, for service in the French Navy at three times this
salary. Abruptly, in the fall of 1674, the two Frenchmen left London and
took service under Colbert. But now another difficulty blocked
Radisson's advance. Colbert insisted that Radisson's wife should come to
France to live. He thought that as long as Madame Radisson remained in
England her husband's loyalty could not be trusted. Besides, her
father, Sir John Kirke, was a claimant against France for L40,000
damages arising out of the capture of Quebec in 1629 by his relatives
and its restoration to France in 1632 without recognition of the
family's rights. If Sir John's daughter was residing in Paris as the
wife of a French naval officer, the minister saw that this dispute might
be more easily adjusted; and so he declined to promote the two Frenchmen
until Madame Radisson came to France.

In 1679, during shore leave from the navy, Radisson met one of his old
cronies of Quebec--Aubert de la Chesnaye, a fur trader. 'He prop