[1] Yet he was a poor man, threatened with
the sponging-house by clamorous creditors and in the power of
avaricious statesmen, who used him as a tool for their own schemes. La
Chesnaye had saved his furs; but the half of the cargo that was the
share of Radisson and Groseillers had been seized at Quebec.[2] On
arriving in France, Groseillers presented a memorial of their wrong to
the court.[3] Probably because England and France were allied by
treaty at that time, the petition for redress was ignored. Groseillers
was now an old man. He left the struggle to Radisson and retired to
spend his days in quietness.[4] Radisson did not cease to press his
claim for the return of confiscated furs. He had a wife and four
children to support; but, in spite of all his services to England and
France, he did not own a shilling's worth of property in the whole
world. From January to May he waited for the tardy justice of the
French court. When his suit became too urgent, he was told that he had
offended the Most Christian King by attacking the fur posts under the
protection of a friendly monarch, King Charles. The hollowness of that
excuse became apparent when the French government sanctioned the
fitting out of two vessels for Radisson to go to Hudson Bay in the
spring. Lord Preston, the English ambassador, was also playing a
double game. He never ceased to reproach the French for the
destruction of the fur posts on Hudson Bay. At the same time he
besieged Radisson with offers to return to the service of the Hudson's
Bay Company.
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