of the foreign trade on the west coast of Africa and in the territory tributary to Hudson's Bay did not contain so much of the political element as to fully justify the presence of a concentrated organization like that of the East India Company. The career of the African Company clearly showed that it was not in harmony with its environment, and its supervision by a modified regulated company was hardly avoidable. The South Sea Company was clearly anomalous, from the standpoint of its commercial life. In a less formal classification it is doubtful whether it ought not to be classed rather with the Bank of England than with the East India Company. It was primarily a body of holders of the national debt and the grant of its commercial privileges was in the nature of a premium on the debt held by it. Its character as a trading company was always insignificant when compared with the other companies or with itself as a lender of funds to the state. Though none of the great companies used the powers granted to them to their limit, the South Sea Company fell much farther short of the limit than any of the others. The corporate organization was hardly called for; the truth seems to be that the success of other great commercial companies had given a fictitious value to corporate privileges and had made it possible to "strengthen the credit" of the state by offering to its creditors the imposing structure of a great corporation with exclusive control of a trade that had outgrown the stage in which exclusiveness was either appropriate or possible. The South Sea Company was peculiar among the corporations of its class in having as a large part of its commercial territory the dominions of another Christian state; other things equal, that alone would indicate an abnormal development of structure; companies in such trade, where indeed they had existed in it at all, had developed but little above the grade of purely regulated companies.

The lands in which the joint-stock companies traded were not occupied by peoples recognized by the English or other western Europeans as being on the same level of civilization with them. The natives of India, and in a greater degree the negroes of Africa and the savage Indians of North and South America, were viewed by the Europeans as inferiors, to be subjected to control rather than to be dealt with. In general, no system of international relations existed between them and England; such political relations as were required had to be created by the English traders themselves. The facilities of commerce were wanting in the strange lands; their peoples had not engaged in international commerce, and even their internal trade had been rudimentary and unsystematic; such property as wharves and commercial settlements, which in commerce between European nations were provided by the state or by subjects of the state in which the commerce was carried on, was wanting and had to be supplied by the companies. Again the lands were far from England, and trading voyages to and from them were attended with the greatest risk of attack by pirates, shipwreck and destruction by savages; larger investments of capital were necessary, and the danger of losing it was greater. If the establishment of trade in Russia and Turkey by adventurers involved effort which, when expressed in property in the trade, tended to exclude others from it and to concentrate its management in the hands of a few, how much stronger must the twofold tendency have been in the trade of India, Africa and North and South America, which had to be absolutely created; the former trade had been known to exist in other hands or to be accessible; the latter did not exist and was not known to be possible until the trading companies demonstrated the truth by creating the commerce.

ΤΗ

VI

COLONIAL COMPANIES

HE expansion of England and of other nations of western Europe after the middle of the sixteenth

century was promoted not only by establishing commercial relations with peoples of settled foreign lands, but also even more effectually by the colonization of new lands, previously unsettled or peopled only by savages, which the several nations claimed by virtue of prior discovery. Colonization was merely one of the agencies through which the general movement sought expression. There was one important element in colonization, however, that was not present in the establishment of mere commercial relations with foreign peoples. Wherever an English colony was planted, there was a body of English subjects to be governed. The English trade with other nations of western Europe and even with Russia and the Levant involved most prominently the establishment of international relations, whether directly through the national governments or indirectly through the medium of commercial corporations; the trade with India and Africa was to involve rather the absorption of the governments of the foreign peoples; but the colonial trade involved an extension of the national government of England over bodies of its own subjects. The colonial commerce did not consist merely in exchanging English products for the goods produced by foreigners through their development of the natural resources of their land, but much more largely in the primary production of

goods by direct development of natural resources; the purpose had to be accomplished by actually settling the land with English colonists. Moreover, the tracts of land colonized were manifestly part of the domain of England and not of foreigners. The presence of bodies of English subjects on English domain as an essential factor in colonization is suggested at the outset because it had great influence on the social structure through which the colonies were planted and fostered. The government of England, largely because of its actual impotence, did not plant the English colonies directly, at least not those that were afterwards a part of the United States, but made use of the corporate system for the purpose, it aimed to secure the development of colonies, a public purpose, through the stimulation of private interest by grants of political and commercial privileges. The necessity of providing governments for bodies of English subjects on geographical areas of English domain, and concurrently of establishing and regulating their economic relations with one another and with the merchants of England, caused a resort to two classes of institutions, as the one purpose or the other was magnified in importance; the two classes of agencies were accordingly the colonial proprietary, whose rights and duties were based on those of the older English nobility, and the colonial corporations, derived from the institutions in which the powers of regulation over English trade and industry were reposed; in a single colony, Georgia, the corporation was formed on the model of the English charitable corporation of the eighteenth century. Neither class of institutions conformed strictly to their model, and as both were engaged side by side in the same work, each was affected by the other in form and development.

By a charter of James I. in 1606, the territory of “Virginia" between the parallels of 34° and 45° north latitude was divided for purposes of trade and colonization be

tween two companies, the London Company and the Plymouth Company, the former to plant a colony at any place between the parallels of 34° and 41°, and the latter at any place between those of 38° and 45°, neither, however, to make a plantation within one hundred miles of one already made by the other. The colony of the London Company was to be called the "First Colony" and that of the Plymouth Company the "Second Colony." Each company was to consist of certain "knights, gentlemen, merchants and other adventurers" named in the charter, together with such others as they should elect to be joined with them. Each colony should be governed by a resident council of thirteen members "in all matters and causes which shall arise, grow, or happen to or within the same . . . according to such laws, ordinances and instructions as shall be in that behalf" given by the king. Moreover, the members of the council should be "ordained, made and removed

according as shall be directed and comprised in the same instructions." In addition to the resident councils there was to be a "Council of Virginia” in England, consisting of thirteen' members appointed by the king, for "the superior managing and direction, . of and for all matters that shall or may concern the government, as well of the said several colonies as of and for any other part or place, within the precincts of 34° and 45°."

The king was to grant land to any person recommended by the council of the colony on its petition. Wherever a plantation should be made by either company it should have all the land extending directly inland one

'In the strict language of the charters of 1606 and 1609 the companies themselves appear to have been called the "First Colony" and "Second Colony," but in some places the terms were applied to the settlements or groups of settlements established by them; no violence is done by the use of the terms as in the text.

It is said that fourteen members were actually appointed, and that the number was later increased to twenty-five.