Treaty of Ryswick The Treaty of Ryswick or Ryswyck was signed on 20 September 1697 and named after Ryswick ( now known as Rijswijk ) in the Dutch Republic . The treaty settled the War of the League of Augsburg , which pitted France against the Grand Alliance of England , Spain , the Holy Roman Empire and the United Provinces . Negotiations started in May . The French representatives had their headquarters at The Hague and the allies were based in Delft : the conference taking place in between the two towns in the Huis ter Nieuwburg in Ryswick . For the first few weeks no result was reached , so in June the two protagonists in the struggle , William III of Orange and Louis XIV of France , each appointed one representative to meet together privately . The two chosen were William Bentinck , Earl of Portland , and Marshal Boufflers , and they soon drew up the terms of an agreement , to which , however , the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and Charles II of Spain would not assent . But in a short time Spain gave way , and on 20 September a treaty of peace was signed between France and the three powers , England , Spain and the United Provinces . William then persuaded Leopold to make peace , and a treaty between France and the Holy Roman Empire was signed on the following 30 October . The basis of the peace was that all towns and districts seized since the Treaty of Nijmegen ( 1679 ) should be restored . Then France surrendered Freiburg , Breisach and Philippsburg - to the Holy Roman Empire , although it kept Strasbourg . On the other hand , it was granted Saint - Domingue ( later to become Haiti ) and regained Pondichéry ( after paying the Dutch a sum of 16 , 000 pagodas ) and Nova Scotia , while Spain recovered Catalonia , and the barrier fortresses of Mons , Luxembourg and Kortrijk . The Duchy of Lorraine , which for many years had been in the possession of France , was restored to Leopold Joseph , a son of Charles IV , Duke of Lorraine , and the Dutch were to be allowed to garrison some of the chief fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands , including Namur and Ypres . Louis undertook to recognize William III as king of England , and promised to give no further assistance to James II of England ; he abandoned his interference in the electorate of Cologne and also the claim which he had put forward to some of the lands of the Electorate of the Palatinate . The War of the Grand Alliance also played out in North America , where it was called King William ' s War . The French colonies of Acadia and New France ( Canada ) , along with their Native allies ( notably Abenaki , Pennacook , and Huron ) , fought the northern English colonies and their Native allies ( notably Iroquois and Mohawk ) . In this theatre the French had been on the ascendant ; " all the English assaults on French possessions had been repulsed ; Fort Penobscot on the border of Acadia had been destroyed ; the frontiers of both New England and New York had been ravaged and forced back ; the English outposts in Newfoundland had been destroyed and the island virtually conquered . " In addition , throughout the war England ' s claims to the Hudson Bay had been severely contested in a series of French expeditions culminating in Pierre Le Moyne d ' Iberville ' s capture of York Factory shortly before the signing of the treaty . In spite of this the Treaty of Ryswick returned the territorial borders to where they had been before the war ( status quo ante bellum ) . The Iroquois nation , deserted by their English allies , continued to make war on the French colonies until the Great Peace of Montreal of 1701 .