Hudson’s Bay Company It is one of the ironies of history that the British owe the beginnings of the famous Hudson’s Bay Company to their traditional enemies in North America: the French Pierre-Esprit Radisson (who posthumously gave his name to the famed modern hotel chain) and his older brother-in-law, Médard Chouart, sieur des Groseilliers, were two of the famed French coureurs de bois, or “runners of the woods,” who began the trade in beaver skins In 1659, the hoard of pelts that Radisson and des Groseilliers brought to Quebec was so great it aroused the greed of the governorgeneral of New France, Pierre de Voyer, the vicomte d’Argenson He had arrived in Quebec on July 11, 1658, to serve as the fifth governor-general of the colony Charles II, enjoying a fortunate beginning to his reign, was never one to miss the opportunity of seeking riches, in part because the British parliament sought to limit his power by the amount of money it voted him each year According to Empire of the Bay, Radisson wrote, “The King gave good hope that we should have a ship ready for an expedition for the next spring And he granted us 40 shillings a week for our maintenance.” Queen Elizabeth I had made her mark by chartering the Honorable East India Company in 1600, and King Charles II had decided to the same by chartering a company to trade with New France However, before committing his limited royal funds to outright backing for what would become known as the “Empire of the Bay,” Charles II first commissioned an exploratory voyage On June 3, 1668, des Groseilliers and Radisson headed back to New France, this time on two English vessels, the Eaglet and the Nonsuch The mission was so urgent that Charles sent the ships in 1668, barely a year after the end of the Second Dutch War, a naval conflict with the Netherlands Fierce Atlantic storms off the west coast of Ireland buffeted the ships, and the Eaglet was forced to return to England However, the Nonsuch continued its voyage successfully to New France To Charles II, the voyage had proved the worth of the dreams of des Groseilliers and Radisson The king formally chartered the Governors and Company of Adventurers Trading into Hudson’s Bay, forever known as the Hudson’s Bay Company To oversee the company, he appointed his relative, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who had served his father, Charles I, as a commander of cavalry in the English Civil War Hudson’s Bay Company 169 However, it would not be long before the French in New France took action against this new British threat along the remote shores of Hudson’s Bay In 1686 and 1697, the French mounted combined land and sea assaults that effectively broke the back of the Hudson’s Bay Company With the British main effort in the New World fixed on protecting the colonies on the East Coast of the Americas, little could be spared for the outposts in the frozen north Besides, the French attacking from New France had far less distance to travel to attack the forts of the Hudson’s Bay Company The main Hudson’s Bay posts, York Factory, Rupert House, and Albany Fort, fell into the hands of the French Throughout the 18th century, a series of wars was fought between England and France for the control of New France and the vast wealth in fur in the interior Called the French and Indian Wars in the United States, the conflicts saw French and English pitted in savage battles along the eastern coast of North America; both sides generally ignored the frozen north of Hudson’s Bay On September 13, 1759, a French army under Louis-Joseph, marquis de Montcalm, was soundly defeated outside Quebec by a British force under General James Wolfe Both men were killed from battle wounds, but the battle marked the decisive defeat of the French in North America Although the British later lost a battle outside Quebec, the French were finally forced to surrender at Montreal in 1760 By the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, all of New France became part of the British Empire The leaders of the Hudson’s Bay Company felt they could exploit the great wealth of the fur trade, free from the raids of the French and their Indian allies The French alliance against England in the American Revolution, however, brought war again to Hudson’s Bay The company’s first great explorer, Samuel Hearne, was forced to surrender Fort Prince of Wales to a French squadron under Jean-Franỗois de Galoup, comte de La Pộrouse After the Treaty of Paris ended the war, however, Hearne was able to return to open a new post at Churchill But a new threat came from an unexpected corner: from within the British Empire in North America By the 1770s, rival fur traders began to appear to contest the monopoly of the Hudson’s Bay Company Formally chartered in 1779 as the North West Fur Company in Montreal, the newcomers determined to wrest control of the fur trade from the Hudson’s Bay Company trappers by any means necessary The North West Fur Company proved much more aggressive than the Hudson’s Bay Company, whose long monopoly had bred in it a spirit of complacency