From the time France was beaten in the continental wars, the English Adventurers never ceased to press their claims against France for the restoration of all posts on Hudson Bay and the payment of damages varying in amount from £200,000 to £100,504. Memorials were presented to King William, memorials to Queen Anne. Sir Stephen Evance, the goldsmith, who had become a heavy shareholder through taking stock in payment for his ships chartered to the bay—had succeeded Marlborough as governor in 1692, but the great general was still a friend at Court, and when Evance retired in 1696, Sir William Trumbull, Secretary of State, became governor. Old Governor Knight came from Albany on the bay, in 1700, to go to France with Sir Bibye Lake and Marlborough to press the claims of the English fur traders against France. For the double claims of restoration and damages, France offered to trade all the posts on the south shore for all the posts on the west shore. The offer was but a parley for better terms. Both English and French fur traders knew that the best furs came from the west posts. Negotiations dragged on to 1710. It was subterraneously conveyed to the English fur traders that France would yield on one point, but not on both: they could have back the bay but not the indemnity; or the indemnity but not the bay. The English fur traders subterraneously conveyed to the commissioners in Holland, that they would accept the restoration of the bay and write off the indemnity bill of £100,000 as bad debts. Such was the Peace of Utrecht, 1713, as it affected the fate of the Hudson’s Bay Company. One point was left unsettled by the treaty. Where was the boundary between bushrangers of New France working north from the St. Lawrence, and the voyageurs of the Hudson’s Bay Company, working south from James Bay? A dozen different propositions were made, but none accepted. The dispute came as a heritage to modern days when Quebec and Ontario wrangled out their boundaries, and Ontario and Manitoba competed for Keewatin, and finally the new province of Saskatchewan disputed Manitoba for a slice giving access to a seaport on Hudson Bay. The settlement came just in time to save the Company from bankruptcy. The Adventurers had no money to pay their captains. Grimmington and Smithsend accepted pay of £200 apiece in bonds. Yet this same Company so often accused of avarice and tyranny to servants borrowed money to pay £20 each to the seamen surviving the terrible disasters of ’97, and donated a special gratuity to Captain Bailey for bringing the books of Nelson safely home. Sir Stephen Evance became governor again in 1700 and transferred £600 of his own stock to Captain Knight as wages for holding Albany. Captains would now accept engagements only on condition of being ransomed if captured, at the Company’s expense; and no ship would leave port without a convoy of frigates.