The disgraced captain went home, and after a miserable existence of some weeks, ended his life by his own hand. On the 20th of February, there is a letter to the Company from his widow, Mary Coats, which was read out to the Adventurers assembled. It prayed that the Committee would "indulge her so far as to order the balance that shall appear upon her late husband's account to be paid, and to permit her to have the stores brought home, still remaining in the _King George_; the profit of these, urged the widow, had always been enjoyed by every master in the Company's services." Moved by the appeal, Widow Coats was called in and informed that provided she delivered up to the Company all the books, papers, charts or drafts belonging to her late husband and now in her custody, she might expect to meet with the favour of the Company. "For which she returned thanks and promised to comply therewith." But the Hakluyt Society's publication of Coats' journal is sufficient to show that his widow did not keep to the strict letter of her word. FOOTNOTES: [62] The number of the Adventurers was, before the enquiry of 1749, a mystery. By many it was charged that they were not above a dozen or fifteen. [63] Dobbs's "Hudson's Bay," a hysterical work, which was throughout an attack on Captain Christopher Middleton. [64] 1720 [65] On June 28th, 1749, at a Company's meeting, an account was made of the cost of defending the Company's charter, upon the motion made in the House of Commons. It amounted in the whole to only £755 5s. 10d., exclusive of Sharpe, the Company solicitor's services. [66] In refusing to advise the granting of a charter to the Company's enemies, the Attorney-General, Sir Dudley Ryder, and the Solicitor-General, Sir William Murray--afterwards Lord Mansfield--drew up a lengthy and important paper, reviewing the charges against the Company. Their conclusion was that either the charges were "not sufficiently supported in point of fact, or were in great measure accounted for from the nature and circumstances of the case." They deemed the charter valid for all practical purposes. [67] "The Company being apprehensive that Mr. Secretary Pitts' indisposition should deprive them of an opportunity of conferring with him in due time, with respect to the Company's claim on the French nation for depredations in times of peace before the Treaty of Utrecht, resolved that a petition should be drawn up to his Majesty, humbly representing such losses and damages, reciting the tenth and eleventh article of the said treaty, and praying that his Majesty will give his plenipotentiaries at the approaching congress for a treaty of peace, such directions as will suffice for justice being done to the Company by compensation for such losses. Also that the boundaries of Hudson's Bay may be settled."--_Minute Book_, May 20th, 1761. CHAPTER XXIV. 1763-1770.