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Why did Arthur Dobbs accuse Christopher Middleton of hiding evidence about the Northwest Passage?

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Map of the Arctic region highlighting the Northwest Passage, a maritime route shown with a red line connecting the Atlantic Ocean near Greenland to the Pacific Ocean via the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, passing north of Canada and Alaska through the Bering Sea. Major islands and surrounding countries such as Russia, Norway, Denmark (Greenland), the United States (Alaska), and Canada are labeled.
Northwest Passage

Arthur Dobbs, a persistent advocate for finding the Northwest Passage, sponsored Christopher Middleton’s 1741 expedition to explore the region via Hudson Bay. Upon returning in 1742, Middleton reported his findings, concluding that no navigable passage existed in that area.

Dobbs refused to accept this conclusion. He suspected that Middleton had indeed discovered the passage but was intentionally concealing the evidence. Dobbs believed that Middleton had been bribed by his former employer, the Hudson’s Bay Company, to suppress the discovery and protect the company's commercial interests. Driven by this conviction, Dobbs organized a subsequent expedition in 1746 to verify the findings, which ultimately confirmed Middleton’s initial assessment that the explored inlets were not gateways to the passage.1