"The French," said another, "intercept the trade; to prevent which the Company some time ago built Henley House,[64] which did, in some measure, answer the purpose: but if they would build farther in the country it would have a better effect. The French went there first, and are better beloved; but if we would go up into the country the French Indians would trade with us."
French encroachment on trade.
Another of the witnesses testified that he "has been informed by the Indians that the French-Canadese Indians come within six score miles of the English factories. The French Indians come to Albany to trade for their heavy goods." He said he had heard Governor Norton say that the "French ran away with our trade." "If," continued this witness, Alexander Brown, "the trade was opened, the French would not intercept the Indians, since in that case the separate traders must have out-factories in the same manner the French have, which the Company have not." Upon being asked by Lord Strange if "in case those out-settlements were erected, whether the same trade could be carried on at the present settlements?" the witness replied that "it would be impossible, but that the trade would be extended, and by that means they would take it from the French. That if these settlements were near the French, they must have garrisons to secure them against the French, and the Indians who trade with and are in friendship with them (whom he distinguished by the name of French Indians)."
Brown quoted Norton as saying, in the year 1739, "that the French had a settlement at about the distance of one hundred or six score miles from Churchill, which had been built about a year, and contained sixty men with small arms."
The result of the deliberations of the Committee of Enquiry was, on the whole, favourable to the Company. The charter was pronounced unassailable, and the Company had made out a good case against its enemies. It had certainly permitted the encroachments of the French. But the English Government of the day foresaw that French possession of Canada was doomed, and the Company could make ample amends when the British flag was unfurled at Quebec and at Montreal.
The Company having come out of the ordeal unharmed,[65] the Lords of Trade and Plantations thought it might as well settle in its own mind the precise territory claimed by the Company under its charter. The Company, on its part, was not forgetful that the French Government had not yet paid its little bill, which having been running for over sixty years, had now assumed comparatively gigantic proportions.
The Government asks the Company to define its territory.
Accordingly the Lords of Trade and Plantations, on the 25th of July, 1750, addressed a letter to the Company, representing that "as it was for the benefit of the plantations that the limits or boundaries of the British Colonies on the Continent of America should be distinctly known, more particularly as they border on the settlements made by the French, or any foreign nation in America, their Lordships desired as exact an account as possible of the limits and boundaries of the territory granted to the Company, together with a chart or map thereof, and all the best accounts and vouchers they can obtain to support the same, and particularly, if any, or what settlements have been made by the English on the frontiers towards the lakes, and if any, or what encroachments have been made, and at what period, and to be exact in stating every particular in the history of whatever encroachments have been made, which may serve to place the proceedings in a true light, and confute any right which may at any time be founded upon them."
Company's reply.
The Company replied, among other things, that the said Straits and Bays "are now so well known, that it is apprehended they stand in no need of any particular description than by the chart or map herewith delivered; and the limits or boundaries of the lands and countries lying round the same, comprised, as your memorialists conceive, in the same grant, are as follows, that is to say: all the lands lying on the east side or coast of the said Bay, and extending from the Bay eastward to the Atlantic Ocean and Davis' Strait, and the line hereafter mentioned as the east and south-eastern boundaries of the said Company's territories; and towards the north, all the lands that lie at the north end, or on the north side or coast of the said Bay, and extending from the Bay northwards to the utmost limits of the lands; then towards the North Pole; but where or how these lands terminate is hitherto unknown. And towards the west, all the lands that lie on the west side or coast of the said Bay, and extending from the said Bay westward to the utmost limits of those lands; but where or how these lands terminate to the westward is also unknown, though probably it will be found they terminate on the Great South Sea, and towards the south," they propose the line already set out by them, before and soon after the Treaty of Utrecht, stating that the Commissioners under that treaty were never able to bring the settlement of the said limits to a final conclusion; but they urged that the limits of the territories granted to them, and of the places appertaining to the French, should be settled upon the footing above mentioned.