The fortress of the River Churchill, known as the Prince of Wales Fort, with its great ruins to be seen to-day, belonging to this period, speaks of a large expense and a high ideal of what a fort ought to be. During the examination of witnesses by the Committee, full opportunity was given to show cases of ill-treatment of men and poor administration of their forts. Twenty witnesses were examined, and they included captains, merchants, and employés, many of whom had been in the service of the Company on the Bay, but whether, as Robson says, "It must be attributed either to their confusion upon appearing before so awful an assembly, or to their having a dependence on the Company and an expectation of being employed again in their service," little was elicited at all damaging to the Company. The charge of the fewness of the forts and the smallness of the trade was more serious. That they should have a monopoly of the trade, and should neither develop it themselves, nor allow others to develop it, would have been to pursue a "dog in the manger" policy. They stated that they had on an average three ships employed solely on their business, that their exports for ten years immediately preceding amounted to 40,240_l._ and their imports 122,835_l._, which they claimed was a balance of trade satisfactory to England. The objection that the whole capital of the Company at the commencement, 10,500_l._, was trifling, was perhaps true, but they had made great profits, and they used them in the purchase of ships and the building of forts, and now had a much more valuable property than at the beginning. That they had been able to increase their stock so largely was a tribute to the profits of their business and to its ability to earn dividends on a greatly increased capital stock. The increase of stock as shown by the Company was as follows:-- Original stock £10,500 Trebled in 1690 31,500 Trebled in 1720 94,500 At this time there was a movement to greatly increase the stock, but the stringency of the money market checked this movement, and subscriptions of ten per cent. were taken, amounting to 3,150_l._ only. This was also trebled and added to the original 94,500_l._, making a total stock of 103,950_l._