EAST INDIA COMPANY’S CHArTER.

The commons, in a clause of the bill for taxing several joint-stocks, provided, that in case of a default in the payment of that tax, within the time limited by the act, the charter of the company so failing should be deemed void and forfeited. The East India company actually neglected their payment, and the public imagined the ministry would seize this opportunity of dissolving a monopoly against which so many complaints had been made; but the directors understood their own strength; and, instead of being broken, obtained the promise of a new charter. This was no sooner known, than the controversy between them and their adversaries was revived with such animosity, that the council thought proper to indulge both parties with a hearing. As this produced no resolution, the merchants who opposed the company petitioned, that, in the meanwhile, the new charter might be suspended. Addresses of the same kind were presented by a great number of clothiers, linen-drapers, and other dealers. To these a written answer was published by the company; the merchants printed a reply, in which they undertook to prove that the company had been guilty of unjust and unwarrantable actions, tending to the scandal of religion, the dishonour of the nation, the reproach of our laws, the oppression of the people, and the ruin of trade. They observed, that two private ships had exported in one year three times as many cloths as the company had exported in three years. They offered to send more cloth and English merchandise to the Indies in one year than the company had exported in five; to furnish the government with five hundred tons of saltpetre for less than one half of the usual price; and they represented, that the company could neither load the ships they petitioned for in England, nor reload them in the East Indies. In spite of all these remonstrances, the new charter passed the great seal; though the grants contained in it were limited in such a manner that they did not amount to an exclusive privilege, and subjected the company to such alterations, restrictions, and qualifications, as the king should direct before the twenty-ninth day of September. This indulgence, and other favours granted to the company, were privately purchased of the ministry, and became productive of a loud outcry against the government. The merchants published a journal of the whole transaction, and petitioned the house of commons that their liberty of trading to the East Indies might be confirmed by parliament. Another petition was presented by the company, praying that their charter might receive a parliamentary sanction. Both parties employed all their address in making private application to the members. The house having examined the different charters, the book of their new subscriptions, and every particular relating to the company, resolved that all the subjects of England had an equal right to trade to the East Indies unless prohibited by act of parliament.

WILLIAM AND MARY, 1688—1701.