On Wednesday last, my Lord Stair and I delivered to the Marechal d'Estrees the demand of the Hudson's Bay Company, with respect to their limits, and by comparing the enclosed, which is a copy of that demand, with the instruction upon his head, you will perceive the same has been fully complied with. So soon as I shall have the French Commissary's answer to our demand, I shall likewise take care to transmit you a copy of it, to be laid before their Excellencys the Lord Justices. [52] PARIS, May the 4th, N.S., 1720. MR. PULTENEY TO MR. SECRETARY CRAGGS. My Lord Stair has spoke to the Regent, who said immediately that the conferences shall be renewed whenever we please; His Excellency then desired His Royal Highness would appoint a day, which he promised to do. This is what the Regent has promised my Lord Stair once every week, for four or five months past, without any effect, and his Excellency does not expect any more from the promise now, though possibly a conference may be appointed for form sake. I have been here near six months, and have seen only one conference, which was appointed by my Lord Stanhope's desire. I think there had been two conferences before I came; at the first of them the commissions were read, and at the second my Lord Stair and Mr. Bladen gave in a memorial about the limits of the Hudson's Bay Company, to which no answer has been made. I must own that I never could expect much success from this commission, since the French interests and ours are so directly opposite, and our respective pretensions interfere so much with each on the several points we were to treat about; but that the French have not been willing to entertain us now and then with a conference, and try how far we might be disposed to comply with a conference, and try how far we might be disposed with any of the views they had in desiring the commission, cannot, I should think be accounted for, but by supposing they knew we came prepared to reject all their demands, and to make very considerable ones for ourselves.... I shall expect your further direction as to my stay or return; I cannot help owning I heartily wish for the latter, but I shall always submit to what His Majesty likes best, and shall only desire in this case that I may have a supply from the treasury, since I have not had the good fortune to be concerned in either of the Misiseppis. CHAPTER XVIII. 1719-1727. The South Sea Bubble -- Nation Catches the Fever of Speculation -- Strong Temptation for the Company -- Pricking of the Bubble -- Narrow Escape of the Adventurers -- Knight and his Expedition -- Anxiety as to their Fate -- Certainty of their Loss -- Burnet's Scheme to Cripple the French -- It Forces them Westward into Rupert's Land. The cause of the Governor's recall lay in the existence of a crisis which promised a happy issue. It arose through the venality of some of the Company's directors, who were victims of the South Sea fever.