But, though Ben Gillam secured his release from the governor of New France, he did not escape the long hand of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had written from London to Mr Randolph of the American Plantations to effect the arrest of Ben Gillam at any cost. At the same time they sent Randolph a £10 present of silver plate. On reaching Boston, Ben Gillam was duly arrested. He afterwards became a pirate, and his ultimate fate was involved with that of the famous Captain Kidd. Both were sent to England to be tried for crimes on the high seas; and it is supposed that, like Kidd, Ben suffered execution. Bridgar, suddenly freed from all danger, as suddenly regained a sense of his own importance. He made drafts on the Company and set out from Quebec in such state as befitted his dignity, with secretary and interpreter and valet. He rode hurriedly along the old post-road between Boston and New York, filling the countryside with the story of his adventures. Then he took ship to England; but there his valour suffered a sudden chill. The Company had refused to honour his bills. They repudiated his drafts, reprimanded him severely, and suspended him from service for several years. Mike Grimmington and Outlaw and the others, who had been shipped down from Nelson to Moose and Rupert, promptly took passage home to England on the Company's yearly ship. By the time Radisson and Groseilliers reached Paris, Europe was ringing with the outrage involved in their exploits.
Radisson found small comfort in Paris. Possibly Colbert's death had deprived him of a sympathetic protector, and the French court was as reluctant now to interfere with the actions of the colonial authorities at Quebec as it had been twenty years before. After petitioning vainly for consideration, Groseilliers seems to have given up the contest and retired for the remainder of his life to a small patrimony near Three Rivers. Not so Radisson! He was bound to the Old World by marriage; and now international complications came to bind him yet more completely. 'It is impossible,' wrote Louis XIV to Governor La Barre, 'to imagine what you mean by releasing Gillam's boat and relinquishing claim to the North Sea,' At the same time Louis was in a quandary. He would not relinquish the French claim to the North Sea; but he dared not risk a rupture of his secret treaty with England by openly countenancing Radisson's exploit on the Nelson river. Radisson was secretly ordered to go back to the Bay and, unofficially, in his private capacity, restore the Nelson river fur posts to the Hudson's Bay Company. The words of the order in part are: 'To put an end to the differences between the two Nations touching the settlements made by Messrs Groseilliers and Radisson on Hudson's Bay, the said Groseilliers and Radisson shall return and withdraw the French with all effects belonging to them and shall restore to the English Company the Habitation by them settled to be enjoyed by the English without molestation.'