hill, or the River of the Strangers, to reconnoitre and
fix a site for a post. The fleet of trading vessels had increased even
faster than the forts. Seven ships--four frigates and three sloops--were
dispatched for the Bay in 1685. Radisson, young Jean, and the four
Frenchmen went on the _Happy Return_ with Captain Bond bound for Nelson.
Richard Lucas commanded the _Owner's Good Will_. Captain Outlaw, with
Mike Grimmington as mate, took the big ship _Success_, destined for
Albany. Captain Hume, with Smithsend for mate, took his cargo boat, the
_Merchant Perpetuana_. The Company did not own any of these vessels.
They were chartered from Sir Stephen Evance and others, for sums running
from L400 to L600 for the voyage, with L100 extra for the impress money.
The large vessels carried crews of twenty men; the smaller, of twelve;
and each craft boasted at least six great guns. In March, after violent
debate over old Bridgar's case, the Committee reinstated him at L100 a
year as governor at Rupert. Phipps went as governor to Port Nelson. One
Nixon was already stationed at Moose. Bluff old Henry Sargeant, as true
a Viking as ever rode the north seas, had been at Albany for a year with
his family--the first white family known to have resided on the Bay.
Radisson had been reappointed superintendent of trade over the entire
Bay; and he recommended for this year 20,500 extra flints, 500 extra
ice-chisels for trapping beaver above the waterfalls, and several
thousand extra yards of tobacco--thereby showing the judgment of an
experienced trader. This spring the curious oaths of secrecy, already
mentioned, were administered to all servants. It may be inferred that
the _Happy Return_ and the _Perpetuana_ were the heaviest laden, for
they fell behind the rest of the fleet on the way out, and were
embayed, along with Outlaw's _Success_, in the icefields off Digges
Island in July. It was the realm of almost continuous light in summer;
but there must have been fogs or thick weather, for candles were lighted
in the binnacles and cabins, and the gloom outside was so heavy that it
was impossible to see ten feet away from the decks in the woolly night
mist.

Meanwhile the governor at Albany, Henry Sargeant, awaited the coming of
the yearly ships. It may be guessed that he waited chuckling. He and
Nixon, who seem to have been the only governors resident on the Bay that
summer, must have felt great satisfaction. They had out-tricked the
French i