In June 1670, one month after the charter was granted, three ships--the _Wavero_, the _Shaftesbury Pink_, and the _Prince Rupert_--conveying forty men and a cargo of supplies, sailed for Hudson Bay. Gillam commanded the _Prince Rupert_, Radisson went as general superintendent of trade, and Charles Bayly as governor of the fort at the Rupert river. Gorst the secretary, Romulus the surgeon, and Groseilliers accompanied the expedition. The ships duly arrived at Fort Charles, and, while Bayly and his men prepared the fort for residence and Groseilliers plied trade with the Indians, Radisson cruised the west coast of the Bay on the _Wavero_. He made observations at Moose and Albany rivers, and passed north to Nelson harbour, where Button had wintered half a century before. Here, on the projection of land between two great rivers--the future site of York Factory--Radisson erected the arms of the English king. The southern river he named Hayes, after Sir James Hayes, Prince Rupert's secretary. The mouth of this river was a good place to get furs, for down its broad tide came the canoes of the Assiniboines, the 'Stone Boilers' whom Radisson had met near Lake Superior long ago, and of the Crees, who had first told him of the Sea of the North.
Radisson returned to England with Gillam on the _Prince Rupert_, while Groseilliers wintered on the Bay; and it appears that, during the next three years, Radisson spent the winters in London advising the Company, and the summers on the Bay, cruising and trading on the west coast. In 1672 he married Mary Kirke. Sir James Hayes said afterwards that he 'misled her into marrying him,' but there is nothing to show that the wife herself ever thought so. Perhaps Radisson hoped that his marriage to the daughter of one of the leading directors of the Company would strengthen his position. He received £100 a year for his services, but, although his efforts had turned a visionary search for the North-West Passage into a prosperous trading enterprise, he was not a shareholder in the Company.
Every year three ships were sailing to the Bay and returning to England laden with peltry; but in 1672 it was observed by the traders at the fort that fewer Indians than usual came down the river with furs. In the next year there were still fewer. For some reason the trade was falling off. Radisson urged Bayly to establish new forts on the west coast, and at length the governor consented to go with him on his regular summer cruise to Nelson. When they came back to Rupert in August they were surprised to find the fort tenanted by a Jesuit from Quebec, Father Albanel, who handed letters to Radisson and Groseilliers, and passports from the governor of New France to Bayly. The sudden decrease of trade was explained. French traders coming overland from the St Lawrence had been intercepting the Indians. But France and England were at peace and bound in closest amity by secret treaty, and Bayly was compelled to receive the passports and to welcome the Jesuit, as the representative of a friendly nation, to the hospitality of Fort Charles. What the letters to Radisson and Groseilliers contained we can only guess, but we do know that their contents, made the French explorers thoroughly dissatisfied with their position in the Hudson's Bay Company. Bayly accused the two Frenchmen of being in collusion with the Company's rivals. A quarrel followed and at this juncture Captain Gillam arrived on one of the Company's ships. The Frenchmen were suspected of treachery, and Gillam suggested that they should return to England and explain what seemed to need explaining.