HISTORICAL SUMMARY 83 



The Hudson's Bay Company, always energetic in establish- 

 ing trading posts wherever the Indians congregated about the 

 shores of the bay, had, by 1685, small forts at the mouths of the 

 Albany, Moose, Eupert, Eastmain, Severn and Nelson rivers. 

 All were trading posts except Eastmain, where a mica mine 

 was worked for a few years, but finally abandoned as unprofit- 

 able. No attempts were made to carry the trade inland in 

 direct competition with the French, whose coureurs de bois the 

 English appear to have held in great respect. 



Many complaints were soon made to the Governor of Canada 

 by merchants and missionaries that the English posts on the bay 

 were ruining the fur trade and demoralizing the natives ; and 

 he, knowing no affront in this quarter would cause James II. 

 to break with Louis XIV., resolved, in a time of peace, to take 

 possession of the English forts. The Governor accordingly sent 

 a detachment of soldiers, under the command of Chevalier de 

 Troyes, overland from Quebec, who, almost without a struggle, 

 took possession of Eupert, Moose and Albany forts. This was 

 tKe commencement of an intermittent warfare between French 

 and English on Hudson bay, lasting until the treaty of Utrecht, 

 in 1713. In 1690 D'Iberville sailed from Quebec with two ships 

 to capture Fort Nelson, but was unsuccessful. War having been 

 declared between England and France in 1693, the Company, 

 assisted by warships, retook Albany, Moose and Eupert forts. 

 The following year D'Iberville, with two ships and one hundred 

 and twenty men, took Fort Nelson from the English ; while a 

 strong force, sent overland from Canada, easily recaptured 

 Albany and Eupert forts. These latter places were a second 

 time recovered by the assistance of the warships Bonaventure 

 and Seaford, in 1695 : while in the following summer Fort Nel- 

 son was recovered with the aid of four warships. 



In 1697 D'Iberville again visited the bay, where he destroyed 

 the English ships amongst the ice, and afterwards took Nelson, 

 renaming it Fort Bourbon. By the treaty of Eyswick, signed 

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