Chap. VIIT.] DISSATISFACTION WITH THE NEW CHARTERS. 357
charter, letters-patents, or other writing or instniment, under our or their great a.d. ig94. seal of England, then and in each and every of the cases aforesaid, it shall and may be lawful to and for us, our heirs and successors, by letters-patents, under our or their great seal of England, to determine, revoke, and make void these pi-esents, and the grant hereby made."
The object of this proviso evidently was to bind the Company to the accept- Effect given ance of those contlitions which the House of Commons had embodied in a series proviso. of resolutions already referred to ; and accoi'dingly, in little more than a month after the date of the above charter, effect wtis given to the proviso by another charter, in which, with several not unimpoiiant modifications, the parliamentary resolutions were enforced. In this new chartei', dated llth November, 1693, after a repetition of the proviso, and a preamble stating, inter alia, the impoi-t- ance of the traffic to the East Indies, and the desirableness of rendering it " more national, general, and extensive than hitherto it hath been," the Com- pany are taken bound to accept and agree to a series of propositions, of which the most important are — that all subjects of the British crown, whether natural born, or " naturalized and endenized," shall be entitled to become members of the Company; that i!'74!4,000 shall be added to the present general joint stock " by the new subscriptions of such persons who shall be minded to adventure any share; that no person shall subscribe or hold more than oP 10,000 of stock in his own or any other name ; that the new subscriptions, if exceeding in the aggregate i?7-i4,000, shall be individually reduced pro rata; that every „C1000 up to i^^l 0,000 shall give a vote, thus allowing to the individual possessed of the maximum of stock ten votes in all ; that the qualification for a committee shall be =i?1000, and for governor and deputy-governor i?-t000; that all dividends shall be paid in money ; that no private trade shall be permitted ; that with the excep- tion of saltpetre sold to the crown, all sales shall be public, by inch of candle ; that no single lot of goods, except jewels, shall exceed cI^oOO in value ; and that British produce and manufactures should be annually exported to the amount of X' 100,000.
These clauses, though binding the Company to conditions which must have Dissatisfac-
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prevented many of the abuses of which their previous management was accused, the new not only fell far short of what their avowed opponents had anticipated, but '^ *" failed to satisfy the public mind ; and the (question having again been keenly agitated, and brought specially before parliament by a petition praying for the erection of a new East India Company, the House of Commons " examined the charters of the old Company, the book of new subscriptions, the state of their present stock, and the petition above mentioned; and after mature deliberation" resolved, on the 19th of January, 169-i, "that all the subjects of England have equal right to trade to the East Indies, unless prohibited by act of parliament." The point thus summarily decided by one branch of the legislature was pro- perly a question of law ; and several yeai-s before, under very different circum-
