England and France
Henry's imagination was caught by the rich potential of the Northwest Territories and he sailed to England in the autumn of 1776 with a proposal for the Hudson's Bay Company. Bearing a Letter of introduction from Luc de la Corne to his brother Abbé Joseph-Marie de La Corne de Chaptes, Henry next went to France where he was met with "a most flattering reception". Through the influence of the Abbé, Henry was received by Marie-Antoinette at the French Court. Though a natural raconteur who was used to winning friends with ease, it was a great sadness to Henry for the rest of his days that he was met with nothing other than condescension from the young queen and her court.
Henry returned to British North America in 1777 in partnership with Jean-Baptiste Blondeau, trading at the Michipicoten River and Sault Ste Marie; all the time working closely with his old friend Cadot. Between 1778 and 1781 he visited England three times, developing friendships with Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. Having discussed the possibility at Banks' residence on Soho Square with him and Solander, on his last trip to England, Henry delivered a detailed plan to Banks for an expedition to find an overland route to the Pacific Ocean. This had seemed possible when they had studied Captain Cook's recent findings, but as it was, Cook had made a mistake so the planned expedition came to nothing.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Henry The Elder
Famous quotes containing the words england and france, england and/or france:
“England and France, Spain and Portugal, Gold Coast and Slave Coast, all front on this private sea; but no bark from them has ventured out of sight of land, though it is without doubt the direct way to India.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In England we have come to rely upon a comfortable time-lag of fifty years or a century intervening between the perception that something ought to be done and a serious attempt to do it.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)
“It is not enough that France should be regarded as a country which enjoys the remains of a freedom acquired long ago. If she is still to count in the world—and if she does not intend to, she may as well perish—she must be seen by her own citizens and by all men as an ever-flowing source of liberty. There must not be a single genuine lover of freedom in the whole world who can have a valid reason for hating France.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)