240 Our North Land. 



until 1631, when Captain Fox, the same who gave his name to the 

 well-known Fox Channel, found his way in the Charles into Hudson's 

 Bay, and made somewhat extensive examinations of the north and 

 west shores. He also entered the Nelson River. On his return in 

 August he fell in with Captain James with the Mary, who was also in 

 search of the supposed passage. The latter must have expected to 

 find the passage, for he carried letters of introduction from Charles 

 the First to the Japanese Emperor. 



Again follows a period in which there seems to have been nothing 

 done to further the north-west passage enterprise. " In 1632 peace 

 was concluded between the English and French, and by the treaty 

 of St. Germain-en-Laye, New France was relinquished to the French 

 without any particular designation of its limits. The provisions of 

 the Treaty of 1632 seem to have been respected for a period of thirty- 

 six years, when in 1668 the next English expedition entered the 

 Bay, which was the first trading voyage ever made by British 

 subjects, and which resulted in the formation of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, and the grant of the charter two years after. In saying 

 this was the first purely commercial enterprise of the British in 

 Hudson's Bay, it is to be understood that the previous enterprises 

 were undertaken with the definite object alone of reaching the 

 Pacific." * 



A Frenchman named Jean Bourdon made a voyage into Hudson's 

 Bay in 1656, but whether or not his expedition was purely com- 

 mercial, or in the hope of discovering the passage through to the 

 Pacific, does not appear. Some writers claim that the voyage was 

 never made, but I fail to find the claim disproved. 



The expedition of 1668, to which Mr. Bell refers, was of more 

 than ordinary importance, and marks the beginning of an era in the 

 history of Hudson's Bay. The expedition was purely commercial, 

 and was undertaken by the English at the suggestion of two French 

 Canadians named De Grozelier and Radisson. These enterprising 

 Canadians had already been engaged in the fur trade of the Hudson's 

 Bay region, but the French Government refused to give them exclu- 



* Bell's " Northern Waters." 



