It was not until 1713 that the French Fur Company succeeded in relieving its post of Fort Bourbon. It had twice sent ships, but these had been intercepted on the high seas by the English and pillaged or destroyed. The _Providence_ arrived the very year of the Treaty of Utrecht. [Sidenote: Starvation amongst the Indians.] But wretched as was the case of the French, that of the Indians was lamentable indeed. A few more years of French occupation and the forests and rivers of the Bay would know its race of hunters no more. Many hundreds lay dead within a radius of twenty leagues from the fort, the flesh devoured from their bones. They had lost the use of the bow and arrow since the advent of the Europeans, and they had no resource as cultivators of the soil; besides their errant life forbade this. Pressed by a long hunger, parents had killed their children for food; the strong had devoured the weak. One of these unhappy victims of civilization and commercial rivalries, confessed to the commandant that he had eaten his wife and six children. He had, he declared, not experienced the pangs of tenderness until the time came for him to sacrifice his last child, whom he loved more than the others, and that he had gone away weeping, leaving a portion of the body buried in the earth. FOOTNOTES: [37] "Six or seven times over," the Company say in their reply. [38] After the battle of Port Nelson, Iberville had returned to France leaving Martigny in command of the Fort. His subsequent career may be read elsewhere; the Bay was no longer to be the theatre of his exploits. He perished in 1707 at Havana. [39] At Albany they were surrounded by the French on every side, a circumstance which greatly sapped their commerce. Yet, even at this period, the importation of beaver and other peltries from the single fort remaining to them was above thirty thousand annually. CHAPTER XVI. 1697-1712. Company Seriously Damaged by Loss of Port Nelson -- Send an Account of their Claims to Lords of Trade -- Definite Boundary Propositions of Trade -- Lewis anxious to Create Boundaries -- Company look to Outbreak of War -- War of Spanish Succession breaks out -- Period of Adversity for the Company -- Employment of Orkneymen -- Attack on Fort Albany -- Desperate Condition of the French at York Fort -- Petition to Anne. The Treaty of Ryswick[40] had aimed a severe blow at the prosperity of the Company,[41] in depriving them of that important quarter of the Bay known as Port Nelson. Although now on the threshold of a long period of adversity, the Merchants-Adventurers, losing neither hope nor courage, continued to raise their voice for restitution and justice. Petition after petition found its way to King, Commons, and the Lords of Trade and Plantations. [Sidenote: The Company's claims.]