Nelson was not French but English, marched his men up-stream to contrive
a junction with young Gillam's forces. When the Hudson's Bay men knocked
on the gate of the New Englanders' fort for admission, the sentinel
opened without question. The gates clapped shut with a slamming of
bolts, and the Englishmen found themselves quietly and bloodlessly
captured by the intrepid Radisson.

Meanwhile Groseilliers and his son, Jean Chouart, had been plying a
thriving trade. To be sure, the ice jam of spring in the Hayes river had
made Radisson's two cockle-shell craft look more like staved-in barrels
than merchant ships. But in the spring, when the Assiniboines and Crees
came riding down the river flood in vast brigades of birch canoes laden
to the waterline with peltry, the Frenchmen had in store goods to barter
with them and carried on a profitable trade.

Radisson now had more prisoners than he could conveniently carry to
Quebec. Rigging up the remnants of his rickety ships for a convoy, he
placed in them the majority of the Hudson's Bay Company and New England
crews and sent them south to Rupert and Moose. Taking possession of Ben
Gillam's ship, the _Bachelor's Delight_, he loaded it with a cargo of
precious furs, and set out for Quebec with Bridgar and young Gillam as
prisoners. Jean Chouart and a dozen Frenchmen remained on the Hayes
river to trade. Twenty miles out from port, Bridgar and young Gillam
were caught conspiring to cut the throats of the Frenchmen, and
henceforth both Englishmen were kept under lock and key in their cabins.

But once again Radisson had to encounter the governing bodies of Quebec.
The authorities of New France were enraged when they learned that La
Chesnaye had sent an expedition to the North Sea. In the meantime
Frontenac had been replaced by another governor, La Barre. Tax
collectors beset the ships like rats long before Quebec was sighted,
and practically confiscated the cargo in fines and charges. La Barre no
doubt supposed that the treaty of peace existing between England and
France gave him an excuse for seizing the cargo of furs. At all events
he ordered Radisson and Groseilliers to report at once to Colbert in
France. He restored the _Bachelor's Delight_ forthwith to Ben Gillam and
gave him full clearance papers. He released Bridgar, the Company's
trader. His stroke of statesmanship left the two French explorers
literally beggared, and when they reached Paris in January 1684 Colbert
wa