Arthur Dobbs, a gentleman and a scholar, had roused the Admiralty to send two expeditions to search for the North-West Passage. It is unnecessary for history to concern itself with the 'tempest in a teapot' that raged round these expeditions. Perhaps the Company did not behave at all too well when their own captain, Middleton, resigned to conduct the first one on the _Furnace Bomb_ and the _Discovery_ to the Bay. Perhaps wrong signals in the harbours did lead the searchers' ships to bad anchorage. At any rate Arthur Dobbs announced in hysterical fury that the Company had bribed Middleton with £5000 not to find the Passage. Middleton had come back in 1742 saying bluntly, in sailor fashion, that 'there was no passage and never would be.' At once the Dobbs faction went into a frenzy. Baseless charges were hurled about with the freedom of bombs in a battle. Parliament was roused to offer a reward of £20,000 for the discovery of the Passage, and the indefatigable Dobbs organized an opposition trading company--with a capital of £10,000--and petitioned parliament for the exclusive trade. The _Dobbs Galley_, Captain Moon, and the _California_, Captain Smith, with the _Shark_, under Middleton, as convoy for part of the way, went out in 1746 with Henry Ellis, agent for Dobbs, aboard. The result of the voyage need not be told. There was the usual struggle with the ice jam in the north off Chesterfield Inlet, the usual suffering from scurvy. Something was accomplished on the exploration of Fox Channel, but no North-West Passage was found, a fact that told in favour of the Company when the parliamentary inquiry of 1749 came on. In the end, an influence stronger than the puerile frenzy of Arthur Dobbs forced the Company to unwonted activity in inland exploration. La Vérendrye, the French Canadian, and his sons had come from the St Lawrence inland and before 1750 had established trading-posts on the Red river, on the Assiniboine, and on the Saskatchewan. After this fewer furs came down to the Bay. It was now clear that if the Indians would not come to the adventurers, the adventurers must go to the Indians. As a beginning one Anthony Hendry, a boy outlawed from the Isle of Wight for smuggling, was permitted to go back with the Assiniboines from Nelson in June 1754.