4.12 A GLANCE AT THE POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL 
New York, for the surrender to me of any guilty fugitives, but we are 
desirous to obtain an order to that effect from the Duke of York.” 
And in the same year (1683) M. de la Barre writes to M. de 
Bene ay as follows: “A small vessel has just arrived from Hud- 
son’s Gulf, 200 leagues further north than the Bay. * * * It 
is proper that you let me know, early, whether the King desire to 
retain that post, so that it may be done, or the withdrawal of the 
French, for which purpose I shall dispose matters in order To at 
THEM OVERLAND beyond Lake Superior, through Sieur Du L’hut, 
and to send to them by sea to bring back the merchandise and pel- 
tries.” 
In Governor Dongan’s Report on the State of the Province, in 
1687, we find a notice of the Hudson’s Bay in the New York Colo- 
nial manuscripts :* “ Last spring he (the Governor of Canada) sent 
one De la Croa with fifty soldiers and one hundred young men of 
Canada to the north-west Passage, where, I am certainly informed 
from Canada, they have taken three forts.’+ In Mr. Nelson’s 
memorial about the state of the Northern Colonies of America, dated 
1696, he says “there are actually, this instant, now at Versailles 
six Sagamoes or chiefs sent from Canada, Hudson’s Bay, and Nova 
Scotia, to solicit such help and assistance against us,” &c., &c. 
M. de la Verandérie was sent on an overland expedition by the 
desire of Count Maurepas, in the year 1738, to discover the Pacific 
Ocean. He set out with his party from Montreal, passed through 
Lake Superior, and proceeding nearly due west, ascended the Assin- 
niboine river, and directed his course towards the Rocky Mountains. 
Without reaching the Rocky Mountains, M. de la Verandeérie was 
obliged to abandon the prosecution of his expedition. Three hun- 
dred miles west of Lake Winnipeg on the Assinniboine river, the 
French erected Fort la Reine. Three others were built further west, 
the most remote of which stood on the bank of the River Paskoyac.{ 
Mackenzie speaks of Canadian missionaries who penetrated “2800 
miles from the civilized parts of the Continent long before the ces- 
sion of the country to the English in 1763! 
The names of several lakes and prominent hill ranges date from 
the occupation of the country west of Lake Winnipeg by the French 
* Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of New York. 
T Governor Dongan refers to Chevalier de la Troye—an account of whose Expedition to 
Hudson’s Bay, in 1686, is contained in Charlevoix’s History. 
+ Foot note to New York Colonial Manuscripts; Paris Doc, 
