"The French," said another, "intercept the trade; to prevent which the Company some time ago built Henley House,[64] which did, in some measure, answer the purpose: but if they would build farther in the country it would have a better effect. The French went there first, and are better beloved; but if we would go up into the country the French Indians would trade with us." [Sidenote: French encroachment on trade.] Another of the witnesses testified that he "has been informed by the Indians that the French-Canadese Indians come within six score miles of the English factories. The French Indians come to Albany to trade for their heavy goods." He said he had heard Governor Norton say that the "French ran away with our trade." "If," continued this witness, Alexander Brown, "the trade was opened, the French would not intercept the Indians, since in that case the separate traders must have out-factories in the same manner the French have, which the Company have not." Upon being asked by Lord Strange if "in case those out-settlements were erected, whether the same trade could be carried on at the present settlements?" the witness replied that "it would be impossible, but that the trade would be extended, and by that means they would take it from the French. That if these settlements were near the French, they must have garrisons to secure them against the French, and the Indians who trade with and are in friendship with them (whom he distinguished by the name of French Indians)." Brown quoted Norton as saying, in the year 1739, "that the French had a settlement at about the distance of one hundred or six score miles from Churchill, which had been built about a year, and contained sixty men with small arms." The result of the deliberations of the Committee of Enquiry was, on the whole, favourable to the Company. The charter was pronounced unassailable, and the Company had made out a good case against its enemies. It had certainly permitted the encroachments of the French. But the English Government of the day foresaw that French possession of Canada was doomed, and the Company could make ample amends when the British flag was unfurled at Quebec and at Montreal. The Company having come out of the ordeal unharmed,[65] the Lords of Trade and Plantations thought it might as well settle in its own mind the precise territory claimed by the Company under its charter. The Company, on its part, was not forgetful that the French Government had not yet paid its little bill, which having been running for over sixty years, had now assumed comparatively gigantic proportions. [Sidenote: The Government asks the Company to define its territory.]