Addenda: January 1683 | British History Online

Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 12 1685-1688 and Addenda 1653-1687. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1899.

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Citation:

'Addenda: January 1683', in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 12 1685-1688 and Addenda 1653-1687, ed. J W Fortescue (London, 1899), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/colonial/america-west-indies/vol12/pp642-643 [accessed 2 May 2025].

January 1683



[Jan.]	2,075. The Hudson's Bay Company to the King. We have perused the extract from the Mons. De La Barre's letter (see No. 2,072). Englishmen discovered Hudson's Bay a century ago, and have frequented these parts ever since, and from time to time have taken possession of several places there. Fifteen years ago one Zachary Gillam pushed on further than before, and discovered a river at the bottom of the Bay, to which he gave the name of Rupert's river, and built a fort and took possession of all the territory adjacent in your name. You later incorporated the Adventurers into a company. The French have never been known to trade in the Bay, and 1673 Count Frontenac concluded an agreement of amity with the Governor of the company, without complaining of the forts. We have since built two more forts, more remote from Canada than the first, and maintain trade and commerce with the Indians. We therefore claim the Bay as ours by right. Signed, Onesiphorus Albin. 3 pp. [Col. Papers, Vol. LXIV., No. 110, and Board of Trade, Hudson's Bay I., pp. 1–4.]