Such prosperity excited envy. The fur buyers and pelt workers and skin merchants of London were up in arms. People began to question whether a royal house, which had been deposed from the English throne, had any right to deed away in perpetuity public domain of such vast wealth to court favorites. Besides, court favorites had scattered with the ruined Stuart House. Newcomers were the holders of the Hudson’s Bay Company stock. What right had these newcomers to the privileges of such monopoly? Especially, what was the meaning of such dividends, when the Company regularly borrowed all the money needed for working operations? As late as 1685, the Company had borrowed £2,000 at 6 per cent. from its own shareholders, and after French disasters began to injure its credit in the London market, it regularly sent agents to borrow money in Amsterdam. The Company foresaw that the downfall of the Stuarts might affect its monopoly and in 1697 had applied for the confirmation of its charter by Parliament. Against this plea, London fur buyers filed a counter petition: (1) It was too arbitrary a charter to be granted to private individuals. (2) It was of no advantage to the public but a mere stockjobbing concern, £100 worth of stock selling as high as £300, £30 as high as £200. (3) Beaver purchased in Hudson Bay for 6d sold in London for 6s. (4) Monopoly drove the Indians to trade with the French. (5) The charter covered too much territory. To which the Company made answer that not £1,000 of stock had changed hands in the last year, which was doubtless true; for ’97 was the year of the great defeat. The climate would always prevent settlement in Hudson Bay, and most important of all—England would have lost all that region but for the Hudson’s Bay Company. In its mood at the time, that was a telling argument with the English Parliament. Negotiations were in progress with France for a permanent treaty of peace. If the Hudson’s Bay Company were dissolved, to whom would all the region revert but to those already in possession—the French? And if the impending war broke out, who would defend the bay from the French but the Company? By act of Parliament, the charter of the English Adventurers was confirmed for a period of seven years. And more—when an act was passed in 1708 to encourage trade to America, a proviso was inserted that the territory of the Company should not be included in the freedom of trade.