If Dongan was preparing to trespass upon French rights in the region of the Great Lakes, Denonville himself was acting with even less scruple in another direction. For several years before this, the Hudson's Bay Company, under the charter granted to them by Charles II in the year 1670, had been trading to the bay from which they derived their name, and had established a number of posts along its shores. The charter had been granted in perfect good faith, as the region in question, which had been discovered and explored by navigators sailing under the English flag, Cabot, Hudson, Baffin, and Davis, was regarded as English territory. It is true that a memoir prepared by M. de Callières, Governor of Montreal, for the minister of marine and colonies,[27] mentions proceedings taken at different times by governors of Canada, between the years 1656 and 1663, to bring the country under French sovereignty; but there is nothing to show that any attempt was made at settlement or even at trading on the coast. The Hudson's Bay Company, on the other hand, had from the date of its charter, not to mention earlier operations, been carrying on trade, and establishing posts in that region without any remonstrance from the French government, and without disturbance of any kind until the year 1682, in the early winter of which two Frenchmen, named Radisson and Des Groseilliers, sailed into Hudson's Bay with two vessels, and took possession of a fort which the English had established near the mouth of the Nelson River. The explanation given by these parties was that they were acting on behalf of the "Compagnie Française de la Baie du Nord de Canada," which had previously formed establishments some distance up that river, and that finding that some English had begun to erect dwellings on an island at the mouth of the river, they had forced them to retire, considering their own claim to the river and its outlet the better.
This was the beginning of trouble. The French king in writing to La Barre on the subject authorized him to check, as far as possible, English encroachments in that quarter. In the spring of 1684 he writes again, and says that he has had a further communication from the English ambassador in regard to the proceedings of Radisson and Des Groseilliers, and that, while he is anxious not to give the English king any cause of complaint, he still thinks it desirable that the English should not be allowed to establish themselves on the Nelson River. La Barre was therefore to make a proposal to the English commandant in Hudson's Bay that no new establishments should be formed there by either French or English. This was at the very least an acknowledgment of the _status quo_. Nevertheless, a charter having been granted by the French king in the following year to a Canadian company authorizing it to trade on the Bourbon River, called in previous correspondence the Nelson, Denonville chose to consider that fact a warrant for making a general attack on the English in the bay. While his discussion with Dongan was in progress in the summer of 1686, he organized an expedition of about a hundred picked men, thirty being regular soldiers, and placed it under the command of a very capable officer, the Chevalier de Troyes, assigning to him as lieutenants three sons of Charles Le Moyne, of Montreal: Iberville, Ste. Hélène, and Maricourt. The difficulties of the overland route were most formidable, but Troyes surmounted them with the loss of only one man. He did not attempt any negotiation with the English, nor send any summons to surrender, but fell upon Port Hayes, the first to which he came, in the dead of night, and captured it without difficulty, the garrison being totally unprepared to resist an attack. At this point there does not appear to have been any loss of life; but at Fort Rupert, which was similarly attacked at night, three of the occupants were killed, and two were wounded. Three more men were killed on the same night on board a vessel anchored near the shore. When the assailants reached Fort Albany, held by a garrison of thirty men, they found that their coming had been anticipated, but, with the aid of cannon captured in the other forts, they had little difficulty in forcing a surrender. Leaving Maricourt in command at the bay, Troyes returned to Quebec. The English captured in this buccaneer fashion were sent home in one of their own vessels which happened to arrive opportunely for the purpose.