Confirmed by the General Court of } the said Company, 10th July, 1700.}
The adventurers were, they said, not indisposed to listen to reason. They proposed limits to be observed by the two nations in their trade and possessions in the Bay. But should the French be so foolish as to refuse their offer, then they would not be bound by that or any former concession, but would then, as they had always theretofore done, "insist upon the prior and undoubted right to the whole of the Bay and straits."
The Court of Versailles was now most anxious to delimit the boundaries of the respective possessions of the two countries in the Bay. To this end, proposals were exchanged between the two crown governments. One alternative proposed by the French Ambassador was that the Weemish River, which was exactly half way between Fort Bourbon and Fort Albany, should mark the respective limits of the French on the east, while the limits of New France on the side of Acadia should be restricted to the River St. George.
This proposition having been referred to them, the Board of Trade and Plantations discouraged the scheme. The Hudson's Bay Adventurers it said, challenged an undoubted right to the whole Bay, antecedent to any pretence of the French. It was, therefore, requisite that they should be consulted before any concession of territories could be made to the Most Christian King or his subjects.
The Company pinned their hopes to an outbreak of hostilities,[42] which would enable them to attempt to regain what they had lost. A protracted peace was hardly looked for by the nation. In answer to Governor Knight's continual complaints, to which were added those of the dispossessed Geyer, the Company begged its servants to bide their time; and to exert themselves to the utmost to increase the trade at Albany, and Moose, and Rupert's River.
"England," says the historian Green, "was still clinging desperately to the hope of peace, when Lewis, by a sudden act, forced it into war. He had acknowledged William as King in the Peace of Ryswick, and pledged himself to oppose all the attacks on his throne. He now entered the bed-chamber at St. Germain, where James was breathing his last, and promised to acknowledge his son at his death as King of England, Scotland and Ireland."