Captain Gillam was afraid to enter the
ice-locked bay so late in summer. The boat turned back, and the trip
was a loss. This run of ill-luck had now lasted for a year. They
still had some money from the Northern trips, and they signed a
contract with ship-owners of Boston to take two vessels to Hudson Bay
the following spring. Provisions must be laid up for the long voyage.
One of the ships was sent to the Grand Banks for fish. Rounding
eastward past the crescent reefs of Sable Island, the ship was caught
by the beach-combers and totally wrecked on the drifts of sand.
Instead of sailing for Hudson Bay in the spring of 1665, Radisson and
Groseillers were summoned to Boston to defend themselves in a lawsuit
for the value of the lost vessel. They were acquitted; but lawsuits on
the heels of misfortune exhausted the resources of the adventurers.
The exploits of the two Frenchmen had become the sensation of Boston.
Sir Robert Carr, one of the British commissioners then in the New
England colonies, urged Radisson and Groseillers to renounce allegiance
to a country that had shown only ingratitude, and to come to
England.[3] When Sir George Cartwright sailed from Nantucket on August
1, 1665, he was accompanied by Radisson and Groseillers.[4] Misfortune
continued to dog them. Within a few days' sail of England, their ship
encountered the Dutch cruiser _Caper_. For two hours the ships poured
broadsides of shot into each other's hulls.
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