On the other hand, when Henry Ellis, the historian of the expedition, writes his book in the year after his return, he is permitted to dedicate it to His Royal Highness Frederick, Prince of Wales, is privileged to refer in his dedication to a "gracious audience" allowed him by the Prince after his return, and to speak of "the generous care" expressed by the Prince "for the happy progress of his design." Again, in a similar dedication of a book written four years afterwards by Joseph Robson, a former employé of the Hudson's Bay Company, but a book full of hostility to the Company, allusion is made to the fact that the Earl of Halifax, Lord Commissioner of Trade and Plantations, gave his most hearty approval to such plans as the expedition sought to carry out. It is said of Lord Halifax, who was called the Father of Colonies: "He knows the true state of the nation—that it depends on trade and manufactures; that we have more rivals than ever; that navigation is our bulwark and Colonies our chief support; and that new channels should be industriously opened. Therefore, we survey the whole globe in search of fresh inlets which our ships may enter and traffic." Those familiar with the work of Lord Halifax will remember that the great colonization scheme by which Nova Scotia was firmly grappled to the British Empire and the City of Halifax founded, was his; and the charge made by Dobbs that for a generation the "Company had slept on the shores of the Bay," would appeal with force to a man of such energetic and progressive nature as the Lord Commissioner.
Accordingly, Dobbs now came out boldly; not putting the discovery of the North-West Passage in the front of his plan, but openly charging the Hudson's Bay Company with indolence and failure, and asking for the granting of a charter to a rival company.
As summed up by the sub-committee to which the petition of Dobbs and his associates was submitted, the charges were:—
I. The Company had not discovered, nor sufficiently attempted to discover, the North-West Passage into the southern seas.
II. They had not extended their settlements to the limits given them by their Charter.
III. They had designedly confined their trade within very narrow limits:
(a) Had abused the Indians. (b) Had neglected their forts. (c) Ill-treated their own servants. (d) Encouraged the French.
The Hudson's Bay Company, now put on their mettle, exhibited a considerable amount of activity, and filed documents before the Committee that in some respects met the charges against them. They claimed that they had in the thirty years preceding the investigation done a fair amount of exploratory work and discovery. In 1719, they had sent out the Albany frigate and Discovery to the northern regions, and neither of them returned to tell the tale. In the same year its vessels on the Bay, the Prosperous and the Success, one from York Factory, the other from Prince of Wales Fort, had sailed up the coast on exploratory expeditions. Two years afterward, the Prosperous, under Kelsey, made a voyage, and the Success, under Captain Napper, had sailed from York Fort and was lost. In the same year the Whalebone, under Captain John Scroggs, went from England to Prince of Wales Fort, and after wintering there, in the following year made a decided effort on behalf of the Passage, but returned unsuccessful. In the year when Dobbs became so persistent (1737) James Napper, who had been saved from the wreck of the Success sixteen years before, took command of the Churchill from Prince of Wales Fort, but on the exploration died, and the vessel returned. The Musquash, under Captain Crow, accompanied the Churchill, but returned with no hope of success. This was the case presented by the Hudson's Bay Company. It was still open to the opponents of the Company to say, as they did, that the Hudson's Bay Company was not in earnest, wanted nothing done to attract rivals, and were adepts in concealing their operations and in hoodwinking the public.
A more serious charge was that they had not sought to reach the interior, but had confined their trade to the shores of the Bay. Here it seems that the opponents of the Company made a better case. It is indeed unaccountable to us to-day, as we think that the Company had now been eighty years trading on the Bay and had practically no knowledge of the inheritance possessed by them. At this very time the French, by way of Lake Superior, had journeyed inland, met Indian tribes, traded with them, and even with imposing ceremonies buried metal plates claiming the country which the Hudson's Bay Company Charter covered as lying on rivers, lakes, &c., tributary to Hudson Bay. It is true they had submitted instructions to the number of twenty or thirty, in which governors and captains had been urged to explore the interior and extend the trade among the Indian tribes. But little evidence could be offered that these communications had been acted on.