Company Seriously Damaged by Loss of Port Nelson -- Send an Account of their Claims to Lords of Trade -- Definite Boundary Propositions of Trade -- Lewis anxious to Create Boundaries -- Company look to Outbreak of War -- War of Spanish Succession breaks out -- Period of Adversity for the Company -- Employment of Orkneymen -- Attack on Fort Albany -- Desperate Condition of the French at York Fort -- Petition to Anne.
The Treaty of Ryswick[40] had aimed a severe blow at the prosperity of the Company,[41] in depriving them of that important quarter of the Bay known as Port Nelson.
Although now on the threshold of a long period of adversity, the Merchants-Adventurers, losing neither hope nor courage, continued to raise their voice for restitution and justice. Petition after petition found its way to King, Commons, and the Lords of Trade and Plantations.
In May, 1700, the Company were requested by the Lord of Trade and Plantations to send an account of the encroachments of the French on Her Majesty's Dominion in America within the limits of the Company's charter; to which the Company replied, setting forth their right and title, and praying restitution.
It has been stated, and urged as a ground against the later pretensions of the Hudson's Bay Company, that at this time they were willing to contract their limits. While willing to do this for the purpose of effecting a settlement, it was only on condition of their not being able to obtain "the whole Straits and Bay which of right belongs to them."
"This," remarked a counsel for the Company in a later day, "is like a man who has a suit of ejectment, who, in order to avoid the expense and trouble of a law suit, says, 'I will be willing to allow you certain bounds, but if you do not accept that I will insist on getting all my rights and all that I am entitled to.'"
The Company's propositions soon began to take a definite form.
THE COMPANY'S CLAIMS AFTER THE TREATY OF RYSWICK.
[_To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations._]
The limits which the Hudson's Bay Company conceive to be necessary as boundaries between the French and them in case of an exchange of places, and that the Company cannot obtain the whole Streights and Bay, which of right belongs to them, viz.:--