The only place of importance now remaining to the English on Hudson Bay was Port Nelson, which was near the French Fort Bourbon. D'Iberville, utilizing the vessel he had captured on the Bay, went back to Quebec in the autumn of 1687 with the rich booty of furs taken at the different points.
These events having taken place at a time when the two countries, France and England, were nominally at peace, negotiations took place between the two Powers.
Late in the year 1686 a treaty of neutrality was signed, and it was hoped that peace would ensue on Hudson Bay. This does not seem to have been the case, however, and both parties blame each other for not observing the terms of the Act of Pacification. D'Iberville defended Albany Fort from a British attack in 1689, departed in that year for Quebec with a ship-load of furs, and returned to Hudson Bay in the following year. During the war which grew out of the Revolution, Albany Fort changed hands again to the English, and was afterwards retaken by the French, after which a strong English force (1692) repossessed themselves of it. For some time English supremacy was maintained on the Bay, but the French merely waited their time to attack Fort Bourbon, which they regarded as in a special sense their own. In 1694 D'Iberville visited the Bay, besieged and took Fort Bourbon, and reduced the place with his two frigates. His brother De Chateauguay was killed during the siege.
In 1697 the Bay again fell into English hands, and D'Iberville was put in command of a squadron sent out for him from France, and with this he sailed for Hudson Bay. The expedition brought unending glory to France and the young commander. Though one of his warships was crushed in the ice in the Hudson Straits and his remaining vessels could nowhere be seen when he reached the open waters of the Bay, yet he bravely sailed to Port Nelson, purposing to invest it in his one ship, the _Pelican_. Arrived at his station, he observed that he was shut in on the rear by three English men-of-war. His condition was desperate; he had not his full complement of men, and some of those on board were sick. His vessel had but fifty guns; the English vessels carried among them 124. The English vessels, the _Hampshire_, the _Dering_, and the _Hudson's Bay_, all opened fire upon him. During a hot engagement, a well-aimed broadside from the _Pelican_ sank the _Hampshire_ with all her sails flying, and everything on board was lost; the _Hudson's Bay_ surrendered unconditionally, and the _Dering_ succeeded in making her escape. After this naval duel D'Iberville's missing vessels appeared, and the commander, landing a sufficient number of men, invested and took Port Nelson. The whole of the Hudson Bay territory thus came into the possession of the French. The matter has always, however, been looked at in the light of the brilliant achievement of this scion of the Le Moynes.