Noel Sainsbury to Sir Thomas D. Hardy, August 16, 1873

III. Mr. Sainsbury to Sir Thomas D. Hardy.

Dear Sir: With reference to Lord Tenterden’s letter to you of the 8th instant, requesting that a search be made in the French correspondence relating to the treaty of Utrecht, a list of which is contained on page 94 of the catalogue of foreign-office records in the custody of the record office, and to ascertain whether commissaries were ever appointed under the 10th article of the treaty of Utrecht, and if so, whether they came to any final arrangement with regard to the boundaries between Hudson’s Bay and the places appertaining to the French, and in accordance with your instructions, I have the honor to report that I have made a careful search through the correspondence in question, but do not find that commissaries were appointed under the 10th article of the treaty of Utrecht, up to August, 1714, the last date of the correspondence in question, although the time “within a year” had long expired, when, by the terms of the 10th article of the treaty, “the commissaries were to be named by each party.” In a memorial of the governor and company of adventurers of England, trading into Hudson’s Bay, to the lords of trade and plantations, in reference to the surrender of the Straits and Bay of Hudson, the settlement of the limits between the said bay and the places appertaining to the French, and satisfaction for depredations committed by the French, the memorialists state that the first of these articles, the surrender, has been made according to the tenor of the treaty, but that “the other two, viz, the running a line betwixt the English and French’ territories and the making reparation to the company for their losses and damages, yet remain to be done.”

This memorial is indorsed as received on the 13th August, 1719, more than six years after the signing of the treaty of Utrecht.

I have, &c., &c.,