Compagnie du Nord

Compagnie du Nord

Compagnie du Nord (Compagnie de la Baie du Nord), fd 1682 by Canadian merchants, led by Charles Aubert de la Chesnaye, to trade into Hudson Bay by sea. The company upheld French claims on the bay by dispatching Pierre-Esprit RADISSON and Médard Chouart DES GROSEILLIERS there with 2 ships, and stabilized NEW FRANCE's Indigenous alliances N of the Great Lakes. In 1685 King Louis XIV granted the company a monopoly of the Hudson Bay FUR TRADE, but costly military expeditions against the HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY (see TROYES, Pierre de) and ruinous taxation (the quart) bankrupted the company. Its monopoly was revoked on 10 Jan 1700 and transferred to the Compagnie de la Colonie.