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Michigan Chapter Seven Dangers Which Surrounded the New Settlements
That the Hudson's Bay Company had suffered serious damage and injury through these operations of the French is made evident by a petition which it presented in 1687 to the British government asking compensation. Among the items were the value of the furs on board the ship captured by D'lberville, the destruction of three ships and ships' stores as well as many thousand beaver skins, but most of all the loss and interruption of traffic caused by the French occupation of the country, amounting to ten thousand pounds sterling a year. The whole bill of damages amounted to nearly a quarter of a million pounds. This matter hung fire for nearly a generation but it does not appear that the French government had any interest in it.
While France was exerting herself to retain the fur trade for her company in the far north she was neglecting the golden opportunity to establish and strengthen herself south of the St. Lawrence. If instead of devoting her energies to maintain French prestige and control on the bleak and barren shores of Hudson's bay, she had anticipated English possession of New York her fate on this continent might have been different.
The colonists of New England knew nothing of the fur business and consequently felt no interest in it. Only after the English passed over to the banks of the Hudson and came into contact with the Five Nations did they begin to perceive the possibilities of making money out of the trading in peltries. As we have already seen, the French had their minds so firmly fixed upon this feature of the opportunities of New France that they gave
little thought to permanent settlements in the way of colonization. They quickly made their way to the great lake region but looked upon this country only as contributing freely to the traffic in furs. They established and garrisoned trading posts, but they were only trading posts and nothing more.
Michigan
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