The Company, too, was debarred from any attempt at reconquest, because of the Treaty[36] just concluded at Ryswick, which yielded the territory which had been the scene of so much commerce, action and bloodshed to the subjects of the Most Christian King. FOOTNOTES: [31] A young Irishman, Edmund Fitz-Maurice, of Kerry, who had embraced the Church, and had served with James's army at the Battle of the Boyne, accompanied the expedition in the character of chaplain. He is alluded to by the French chronicler of the affair as "Fiche-Maurice de Kieri de la Maison du Milord Kieri en Irlande." [32] The fourth, the fire-ship _Owner's Love_, was never more heard of. It is supposed that, separated from the others, she ran into the ice and was sunk, with all on board. [33] Thus was concluded what was, in the opinion of the best authorities, French and English, one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles of the war. "Toute la Marine de Rochefort croient que ce combat a ete un des plus rudes de cette Guerre," says La Potherie. [34] "Ils avoient de tres habile cannoniers," Jérémie, an eye-witness, was forced to confess. [35] "Ainsi le dernier poste," Garneau exclaims, "que les English avaient dans le baie d'Hudson tombé en notre pouvoir, et la France resta seule maitresse de cette region." (Tome II., p. 137.) But Garneau overlooked the three forts in James' Bay retaken by the English in 1693; one of which, Fort Anne or Chechouan, he mistook for Fort Nelson. At any rate Fort Albany or Chechouan remained in possession of the Company from 1693; and they never lost it. It was unsuccessfully attacked by Menthel in 1709. [36] So strongly has the Treaty of Ryswick been interpreted in favour of France, that some historians merely state the fact that by it she retained all Hudson's Bay, and the places of which she was in possession at the beginning of the war. The commissioners having never met to try the question of right, things remained _in statu quo_. Now, whatever the commissioners might have done, had they ever passed judgment on the cause the Treaty provided they should try, they could not have given Fort Albany to the British, for it was one of the places taken by the French during the preceding peace, and retaken by the British during the war, and, therefore, adjudged in direct terms of the Treaty itself to belong to France. Thus, then, it will be seen, declared the opponents of the Company, that the only possession held by the Hudson's Bay Company during the sixteen years that intervened between the Treaty of Ryswick and the Treaty of Utrecht was one to which they had no right, and which the obligations of the Treaty required should be given up to France.--_Report of Ontario Boundary Commission._ CHAPTER XV. 1698-1713.