Note 40 — Chapter XVI · 1697-1712.

By the Treaty of Ryswick, Great Britain and France were respectively to deliver up to each other generally whatever possessions either held before the outbreak of the war, and it was specially provided that this should be applicable to the places in Hudson's Bay taken by the French during the peace which preceded the war, which, though retaken by the British during the war, were to be given up to the French. Commissioners were to be appointed in pursuance of the Treaty to determine the rights and pretensions which either nation had to the places in Hudson's Bay. But these commissioners never met. The commissioners must, however, have been bound by the text of the Treaty wherever it was explicit. They might, said the Company's opponents, have decided that France had a right to the whole, but they could not have decided that Great Britain had a right to the whole. They would have been compelled to make over to France all the places she took during the peace which preceded the war, for in that the Treaty left them no discretion. The following are the words of the Treaty:—"But the possession of those places which were taken by the French, during the peace that preceded this present war, and were retaken by the English during the war, shall be left to the French by virtue of the foregoing article." Thus the Treaty of Ryswick recognized and confirmed the right of France to certain places in Hudson's Bay distinctly and definitely, but it recognized no right at all on the part of Great Britain; it merely provided a tribunal to try whether she had any or not.