to his son, who devised it to his four daughters, of whom it was purchased by Colman and others.
At the junction of the two companies, they performed at Drury Lane under the title of the King's Company, and cheered themselves with the flattering assurance of comfortable success. In this, however, they were speedily deceived. The management, freed from the spur of competition, grew lax and negligent, audiences decreased, and while the patentees dictated their own terms to the actors, they were unable to enjoy their monopoly in peace among themselves. Of the twenty shares into which the profits were divided, ten had been appropriated to the proprietors, and the remaining ten, in certain proportions, to the actors. The proprietors who took the one moiety were likewise ten in number. These, impelled by whim or necessity, sold their shares or parts of their shares; and thus moneylenders and speculators were introduced into the management, who obtruded their voices and gave their votes on matters of which they knew absolutely, nothing. The natural consequences ensued, receipts diminished, and the incompetent managers revenged their own folly on the helpless actors by diminishing their quota of the profits.
Betterton, who to save the two companies from ruin, had planned the coalition, now perceived that the remedy had become worse than the disease, and abetted by the principal performers, he, through the medium of Lord Dorset, represented their case to the consideration of King William III. The patentees, secure in their fancied rights, by the advice of Rich, maintained that by law no other patent could be granted. This assumption was stigmatized by the opposite party as a slight on the Prerogative; and the lawyers consulted by Betterton, unanimously gave as their opinion, that the grants of Charles interfered not in the slightest degree with the power of any succeeding Prince to confer similar privileges
S 2
