sessed, and looking to the current price of their stock in the market, their capital could not be fairly estimated at a less sum than 1,500,000l. They also contended that their forts, towns, and territories in India were by their charters theirs for ever, whatever might become of their privilege of exclusive trading. No steps were taken to carry into effect the recommendations of the privy council; nor did the enemies of the Company succeed in getting it broken up, even when the following year, by an unaccountable piece of neglect, it had legally incurred the forfeiture of its charter by the non-payment on the appointed day of a tax upon its capital imposed by a recent act of parliament. On the contrary, on the 7th of October, 1693, it obtained from the king a renewal of its charter, with a full restoration of all its former powers and privileges. Two years after, an investigation was made by parliament into this transaction, when it appeared that the Company had, in the year 1693, expended for special (but unspecified) services little less than 90,000l.; of which, among other persons in power, the Duke of Leeds, the president of the council, was all but proved to have been a sharer to a large amount, while his majesty himself was strongly suspected to have benefited to a still larger. These disclosures, or exposures, did not tend to allay the public feeling against the Company which about the same time fell into further disfavour by being obliged to suspend for some years the payment of any dividends in consequence of a train of severe losses it had incurred. Indeed, the Company now scarcely derived any advantage at all from its charter, the validity of which was denied by parliament, and which even the government openly disregarded, granting licences to the private traders in the most unreserved manner. To this pass had matters been brought, when, in the beginning of the year 1698, the government, being in want of money, bethought itself of trying what could be made of the monopoly of the India trade, which was thus contested or in abeyance. The Company now offered to make an advance of 700,000l., at four per cent., on condition of obtaining a parliamentary confirmation of their charter; but on this, at the instigation, as it is alleged, of the Chancellor of the Ex-
