Because of the long winter freeze, the HBC was also relatively free of interference from the government in London. Its small size in terms of capital, staff, and the absolute value of trade, and the absence of heavily populated possessions like Bengal or Java, all meant it could generally avoid political controversy. Crucially, the Hudson’s Bay Company never needed financial support from the government. This not only removed a potential source of friction, but posed a consistent defense against would-be reformers: without the HBC monopoly, who would pay for the forts and outposts seen as crucial for anchoring British claims on huge swathes of North America?