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 Foster : The English Factories in India 879 of this subject is to discriminate clearly, if possible, and explain the contemporary use of these various terms, to classify these various forms of patents and monopolies, to discover the reasons for the grant of each respective class, and to measure the degrees of popular opposition to each. The parliamentary petitions against the monopolies, for in- stance, seem scarcely to have taken into consideration that class of patents which is chosen as the principal subject of this book, nor did the proclamations or laws contemplate them, except in a quite subordinate degree. The industrial monopolies, in other words, may be of especial interest to the economist, but to the historian, who takes into considera- tion all the phenomena of the time, they are only a small part of a much larger whole. This somewhat perfunctory treatment of the larger question involved is our principal, in fact almost our only criticism of this serious study by a well-trained investigator of an interesting and important subject. We would, however, call attention also to a certain a priori method of treatment. After a very slight examination of Continental phenomena, the author suggests the probability that England was the precursor of other nations in developing industrial patents. Afterwards the sugges- tion is treated as an ascertained result, quite in the manner of Thorold Rogers, and he speaks without hesitation of England as the " birthplace of the system " of patents for the encouragement of new manufactures. The same tendency appears in the treatment of industrial patents as due to the deliberate policy of Queen Elizabeth and her ministers, the grants of monopolies of other kinds as simply a later and unintentional accretion. There is no sufficient authority given for this; nor can we doubt that monopolies were granted principally for financial or personal reasons, and in answer to an appeal either to the acquisitiveness, the fondness, or the good nature of the sovereign. We regret that a more restricted subject was not taken, or else that the first chapter, the " Political History " of the monopolies, was not made much longer and more serious, more discriminating and more scientifically historical. We have no doubt that the author is entirely capable of having so treated it, but was led astray by a predominatingly economic interest. The English Factories in India, 1618-1621. A Calendar of Docu- ments in the India Office, British Museum, and Public Record Office. By William Foster. (Oxford : The Clarendon Press. 1906. Pp. xlvii, 379.) The printed documentary material for the early history of the East India Company has been happily increased by this volume. Already, to mention only the most important sources of comparatively recent publication, we have had the " Court Minutes of the East India Com- pany, 1599-1603 " published by Mr. Henry Stevens under the title, The Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies, Sir George Birdwood's Register of Letters, j6oo-i6ip, the six volumes of the Letters received