"Were we to resort to the early history of our settlements, we might lay the foundations of just claims upon the public to assist our present wants. We could show instances of most destructive attacks by the French upon our factories. Our forts and military works, mounted with a numerous and expensive artillery for the defence of the colony against their future operations, were destroyed and the guns ruined. And particularly was a most grievous loss occasioned to us by the predatory attack of La Pérouse about the conclusion of the American War, which caused the distress to which we have above alluded. "Against these pressures when our trade flourished we were able to hold up, and we found within ourselves those resources which defeated the enemy's views and continued to Great Britain the trade we had established. "And it is not until pressed to our last resort that we ask of your Lordships that assistance with which we may confidently hope to preserve our trade until the continent may be again opened, when we shall be delivered from those difficulties under which we are now sinking." The petition was signed by Wm. Mainwaring, Governor; Joseph Berens, Deputy Governor; George Hyde Wollaston, Thomas Neave, Job Mathew Raikes, Thomas Langley, John Henry Pelly, Benjamin Harrison, John Webb. In April the Adventurers petitioned the King in Council to reduce duties on furs to one-half, or trade must suffer extinction. No profit was derivable, it said, on marten, wolf, bear, wolverine and fisher-skins. To this petition the Office of Committee of Privy Council for Trade, Whitehall, replied in the following February, that the memorial of the Hudson's Bay Company contained no proposition on which the Lords of this Council could "offer any opinion to the Lords of Treasury." [Sidenote: Small Government assistance.] As their petition was denied, the Company now boldly prepared a request and asked for a loan of £60,000, and that time be extended for paying the duties on furs imported until the continental market re-opened. To this request an answer was returned, allowing twelve months storage of furs free of duty and promising drawbacks as if storage had only been for one year, but stating that there were no funds out of which a loan could be made without special authority of Parliament. It was clear that the Company was in very low water, and that some new salutary policy was demanded. By way of a beginning, barter was abolished as a basis of trade, and money payments ordered. At the same time the Adventurers stole a leaf out of the book of the North-West company, and new regulations, comprising thirty-five articles, were made in the early months of 1810, for carrying on the business in Hudson's Bay.