One witness said: "The method of trade is by a standard set by the Governors. They never lower it, but often double it, so that where the Standard directs 1 Skin to be taken they generally take Two." Another said he "had been ordered to shorten the measure for Powder, which ought to be a Pound, and that within these 10 Years had been reduced an Ounce or Two." "The Indians made a Noise sometimes, and the Company gave them their Furs again." A book-keeper lately in the service said that the company's measures for powder were short, and yet even such measures were not filled above half full. Profits thus made were distinguished as "the overplus trade," and signified what skins were got more than were paid for, but he could not say whether such gains went to the company or to the governor. (As a matter of fact, the factors or governors shared in the company's profits, and were interested in swelling them in every way they could.) There was much news of how the French traders got the small furs of martens, foxes, and cats, by intercepting the Indians, and leaving them to carry only the coarse furs to the company's forts. A witness "had seen the Indians come down in fine _French_ cloaths, with as much Lace as he ever saw upon any Cloaths whatsoever. He believed if the Company would give as much for the Furs as the _French_, the _Indians_ would bring them down;" but the French asked only thirty marten-skins for a gun, whereas the company's standard was from thirty-six to forty such skins. Then, again, the company's plan (unchanged to-day) was to take the Indian's furs, and then, being possessed of them, to begin the barter. This shouldering the common grief upon the French was not merely the result of the chronic English antipathy to their ancient and their lively foes. The French were swarming all around the outer limits of the company's field, taking first choice of the furs, and even beginning to set up posts of their own. Canada was French soil, and peopled by as hardy and adventurous a class as inhabited any part of America. The _coureurs du bois_ and the _bois-brûlés_ (half-breeds), whose success afterwards led to the formation of rival companies, had begun a mosquito warfare, by canoeing the waters that led to Hudson Bay, and had penetrated 1000 miles farther west than the English. One Thomas Barnett, a smith, said that the French intercepted the Indians, forcing them to trade, "when they take what they please, giving them Toys in Exchange; and fright them into Compliance by Tricks of Sleight of Hand; from whence the _Indians_ conclude them to be Conjurers; and if the _French_ did not compel the _Indians_ to trade, they would certainly bring all the Goods to the _English_."