All These Things Having Been Reported By One Of My Particular Friends To The Persons Who Are In The Interest

Of the Government, they judged correctly that a man who spoke freely in that manner, & who made no difficulty in

Letting his sentiments be known, & who shewed by them that it was possible to be easily led back, by rendering justice to him, to a party that he had only abandoned through dissatisfaction, I was requested to have some conferences with these same persons. I took in this matter the first step without repugnance, & upon the report that was made to my Lord Preston of things that we had treated upon in the interviews, & of that of which I claimed to be capable of doing, I was exhorted from his side of re-entering into my first engagements with the English; assuring me that if I could execute that which I had proposed, I should receive from His majesty in England, & from His Royal Highness of the Hudson's Bay Company, & from the Government, all kinds of good treatment & an entire satisfaction; that, moreover, I need not make myself uneasy of that which regarded my interests, this minister being willing himself to be charged with the care of me, to preserve them, & of procuring me other advantages after that I should be put in a position of rendering service to the King his master. They represented to me again that His Royal Highness honoring the Hudson's Bay Company with his protection, it would pass even on to me if I would employ upon it my credit, my attentions, & the experience that I had in the country of the North, for the utility & the benefit of the affairs of that Company, in which His Royal Highness took great interest.

At the same time I received some letters at Paris from the Sieur Ecuyer Young, one of those interested in the Hudson's Bay Company, in which he solicited me on his part, & in the name of the Company, to return into England, giving me some assurances of a good reception, & that I should have reason to be satisfied on my part in regard to my particular interests, as well as for some advantages that they would make me. These letters, joined to those in which my Lord Preston continued his urgencies against me to the very Christian King, decided me to determine, by the counsel of one of my friends, to yield myself at last to all their solicitations of passing over to England for good, & of engaging myself so strongly to the service of His Majesty, & to the interests of the Nation, that any other consideration was never able to detach me from it. There was only my Lord Preston, some of his household, & the friend who had counselled me to come into England, who knew of my design. I took care to save appearances from suspicion by the danger in which I exposed myself, & up to the evening of my departure I had some conferences with the ministers of the Court of France, & the persons who there have the departments of the marine & commerce, upon some propositions of armament, & the Equipment of the Ships destined for my 2nd voyage.

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