"Your Committee thought proper, in the first place, to enquire into the nature and extent of the charter granted by King Charles the Second, to the Company of Adventurers trading into Hudson's Bay; under which charter the present Company claim as right to lands and an exclusive trade to those countries; which charter being laid before your Committee, they thought it necessary for the information of the House to annex a copy thereof to this report." The charter, published now for the first time, was deemed to be valid. [Sidenote: Witnesses called by the committee.] The Committee had examined the witnesses in the case. These witnesses were: Joseph Robson, who had been employed in the Bay for six years as a stonemason; Richard White, who had been a clerk at Albany Fort and elsewhere; Matthew Sargeant, who had been employed in the Company's service and "understood the Indian language"; John Hayter, who had been house carpenter to the Company for six years at Moose River; Matthew Gwynne, who had been twice at Hudson's Bay; Edward Thompson, who had been three years at Moose River as surgeon; Enoch Alsop, who had been armourer to the Company at Moose River; Christopher Bannister, who had been armourer and gunsmith, and had resided in the Bay for twenty-two years; Robert Griffin, silversmith, who had been five years in the Company's service; Thomas Barnet Smith, who went over to Albany in 1741; Alexander Brown, who had been six years at Hudson's Bay as surgeon; Captain Thomas Mitchell, who had commanded a sloop of the Company. Besides the above witnesses there was, of course, Dobbs himself, who was "examined as to the information he had received from a French-Canadese Indian (since deceased) who was maintained at the expense of the Admiralty, on the prospect of his being of service on the discovery of a north-west passage." Dobbs "informed your Committee that the whole of that discourse is contained in part of a book printed for the witness in 1744, to which he desired leave to refer."[63] There also appeared Captain William Moor, who had been employed in Hudson's Bay from a boy; Henry Spurling, merchant, who had traded in furs for twenty-eight years past, during which time he had dealt with the Hudson's Bay Company; Captain Carruthers, who had been in the Company's service thirty-five years ago; and Arthur Slater, who had been employed by the Company on the East Main. The opposition endeavoured to show that one object aimed at in granting a charter to the Hudson's Bay Company was to further the discovery of the north-west passage. This of course was absurd. It was charged that they had done almost nothing in this direction, which the Adventurers on their part rebutted by furnishing Parliament with a list of the ships they had fitted out for such a discovery. In the evidence before the Committee, it became clear that the witnesses were not unanimous, especially concerning the probability of finding a north-west passage.