King Louis was in a quandary. He dare not offend the Hudson’s Bay Company, for its chief shareholders were of the English court, and with the English Court, Louis XIV had a secret treaty. To De la Barre he sent a furious reprimand for having released Gillam’s pirate vessel. “It is impossible to imagine what your conduct meant,” ran the reproof, “or what you were about when you gave up the vessel captured by Radisson and Groseillers, which will afford the English proof of possession at Port Nelson. I am unwilling to afford the King of England cause of complaint,” he explained, “but I think it important to prevent the English establishing themselves on Nelson River.” In brief, according to the shifty trickery of a royal code, Radisson was to be reprimanded publicly but encouraged privately. Groseillers dropped out of the contest disgusted. The French court sent for Radisson. He was ordered to prepare to sail again to the bay on April 24, 1684, but this time, Radisson would have no underhand commission which fickle statesmen might repudiate. He demanded restoration of his confiscated furs and a written agreement that he should have equal share in trading profits. The Department of the Marine haggled. Preparations went on apace, but the Hudson’s Bay Company was not idle. Sir James Hayes and Sir William Young and my Lord Preston—English envoy to Paris—urged Radisson to come back to England on one hand, and on the other threatened rupture of the treaty with France if “condign punishment” were not visited on the same men. It is here what historians have called “Radisson’s crowning treachery” takes place. “Prince of liars, traitors, adventurers and bushrangers”—says one writer. “He received the marked displeasure of M. Colbert,” explains another, though Colbert was dead. “He was blamable for deserting the flag of France: the first time we might pardon him, for he was the victim of grave injustice, but no excuse could justify his second desertion. He had none to offer. It was an ineffaceable stain,” asserts yet another critic.