Along with the French proposals of July 15, Bussy presented Pitt with a memorial on the grievances of Spain, proposing that England should terminate her differences with that court, and declaring that the French king "cannot disguise the danger he apprehends, and of which he must necessarily partake if these objects which seem nearly to concern his Catholic majesty shall be the occasion of a war". Pitt was furious at this insult to his country and at once addressed Bussy in terms different from the ordinary language of diplomacy. He declared in plain words that the king would not allow the dispute with Spain to be blended in any manner whatever in the negotiation, and that any further attempt to blend them would be considered an affront. He returned the memorial as "wholly inadmissible".[37] In answer to the French articles he replied that Canada must be ceded unconditionally, and refused to surrender Cape Breton or to allow France any part in the fisheries. Both Pitt and Choiseul held the fisheries question to be of prime importance. If France were shut out from them, she would, Pitt believed, permanently be crippled as a maritime power, for apart from the value of the fish both for victualling ships and in commerce the fisheries were a nursery for a race of hardy seamen, and Pitt wished to prevent France from ever restoring either her merchant marine or her naval strength. The second crucial question in the negotiation concerned our allies. Pitt insisted that Frederick should receive back the territories conquered from him by France, and that both England and France should be free to help their allies. Determined to give France no commercial advantage, he refused to cede either Senegal or Goree. England must have Minorca, but would agree to an equal partition of the neutral islands, and would restore Belle Ile, Guadeloupe, and Mariegalante. He further rejected the date proposed as a basis for a peace in India. [Sidenote: _PITT'S ULTIMATUM._]