If the French, it was argued, came to be entirely possessed of Hudson's Bay, they would undoubtedly give up whale fishing in those parts, which will greatly tend to the increase of their navigation and to their breed of seamen.
When your Majesty, in your high wisdom, shall think fit to give peace to those enemies whom your victorious arms have so reduced and humbled, and when your Majesty shall judge it for your people's good to enter into a treaty of peace with the French King, your petitioners pray that the said Prince be obliged by such treaty, to renounce all right and pretensions to the Bay and Streights of Hudson, to quit and surrender all posts and settlements erected by the French, or which are now in their possession, as likewise not to sail any ships or vessels within the limits of the Company's charter, and to make restitution of the £108,514, 19s. 8d., of which they robbed and despoiled your petitioners in times of perfect amity between the two Kingdoms.
This petition seems actually to have come into the hands of the Queen and to have engaged her sympathy, for which the Honourable Adventurers had to thank John Robinson, the Lord Bishop of London. This dignitary, persona grata in the highest degree to the sovereign, was also a close personal friend of the Lake family, whose fortunes[46] were long bound up with the Hudson's Bay Company. The Company was asked to state what terms it desired to make. In great joy they acceded to the request.
To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of Trades and Plantations.
The Memorandum of the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay:
That for avoiding all disputes and differences that may, in time to come, arise between the said Company and the French, settled in Canada, they humbly represent and conceive it necessary—
That no wood-runners, either French or Indians, or any other person whatsoever, be permitted to travel, or seek for trade, beyond the limits hereinafter mentioned.
That the said limits began from the island called Grimington's Island, or Cape Perdrix, in the latitude of 58½° north, which they desire may be the boundary between the English and the French, on the coast of Labrador, towards Rupert's Land, on the east main, and Novia Britannia on the French side, and that no French ship, bark, boat or vessel whatsoever, shall pass to the northward of Cape Perdrix or Grimington's Island, towards or into the Streights or Bay of Hudson, on any pretence whatever.
Demand of the Company.