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 Chap. VIII.] NEW CHARTERS GRANTED. 355

might have expected, and indeed was necessary to preserve this trade, could not ad. 1393. be perfected by his own authority alone, and that the Company could not be induced to consent to any such regulations as might have answered the intentions of the House of Commons, and that the concurrence of parliament is requisite to make a complete and useful settlement of this trade, has directed all the proceedings in this matter to be laid before them ; and recommends to them the preparing of such a bill, in order to pass into an act of parliament, a.s may establish this trade on such foundations as are most likely to preserve and advance it."

Tiie House of Commons endeavoured to act on this suggestion, but finding that the opposition of the Company still continued, resolved, on the 25th Feb- ruary, 1693, "That an humble address be presented to his majest}', that he will dissolve the East India Company, upon three years' warning to the said Company, according to the power reserved in their charter." The king answered, " I will do always all the good in my power for this kingdom, and I will con- sider your adch'ess."

A crisis was thus evidently approaching ; but the Company, though they had The been bold enough to provoke it, became alive to the full extent of the danger, f„i-ft.it ti.eir

charter.

and determined to leave no means untried that promised to prevent it. Unfor- tunately, however, at this very time, from mere inadvertency or some other cause which has never been properly explained, they incurred a direct forfeiture of their charter by failing to make payment of the first quartei-ly instalment of a tax of five per cent, imposed upon their stock, by Act 4 Wm. c^nd Mary, c. 1 5. In this act the stock was valued at .i^7-i4,000, and consequently the whole sum exigible under the firet quarterly payment was only .^POSOO. It is obvious that the nonpayment of a sum so comparatively paltry must have been owing to oversight and not to inabilit}' ; but the enemies of the Company were numerous, infiuential, and inveterate ; and as the act, after ordering the first quarterly pay- ment to be made on the 2oth of March, 1693, ex])ressly declared, that "in case the governors and treasurers of the said respective companies" (the East India Company, the Royal African Company, and the Hudson's Bay Company) " shall make default in payment of the said several sums, or any of them respectively, ciiarged on the stock of the said companies, at the days and times aforesaid, according to the true intent of this act, the charter of such company respectively shall be, and is hei'eby adjudged to be void," it was seriously proposed to exact the fidl penalty. The Company being thus entirely at the mercy of govern- ment, abandoned all idea of resistance to any terms that might be offered them, and counted themselves fortunate when they escaped annihilation by obtaining new cro-wn charters, which provided that the forfeiture, if really incurred, should not take effect.

The first of these charters, dated 7tli October, 1693, after premising that xewcimrtera " the governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East the cro»i.