Page:An Act for Extending and improving the Trade to Africa (1750).djvu/8

 future meetings, and of the notices and summons to be sent for that purpose, from time to time, to the members of the said committee; and no order or resolution of the said committee, to which all the members of the said committee, present at the making thereof, shall not be consenting, shall be valid or binding, unless the same shall be approved and confirmed at a subsequent meeting of the said committee, at which all the members of the said committee shall be present, or of which, such of them as shall happen to be absent, shall have had the usual notice.

XII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That on every meeting of the said committee, when the time prefixed for entering on business shall be come, and the said nine committee-men, or so many of them as are necessary to make a committee, shall be present, before they enter upon business, a chairman shall be chosen by lot out of the committee-men then present, who shall take the chair for that meeting; and shall not be permitted to give his vote that day on any question before the said committee, unless there shall happen to be an e-quality of votes on any question or questions; in all which cases the said chairman shall be at liberty to give his vote on which side of the question he shall judge to be right; and to prevent any of the said committee-men from being designedly absent when a chairman is to be chosen, every committee-man, who shall not be present at the choice of the chairman, shall not be permitted to vote on any question before the committee that day; but shall be at liberty to be present, and give his opinion in all matters whatsoever, as any other committee-man may do: and all matters which shall be decided by a plurality of votes of such committee-men as shall be intitled to vote, shall be deemed and taken to be decided by a majority of committee-men present; any thing in this act to the contrary notwithstanding.

XIII. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That such of his Majesty's subjects, who shall, on or before the said thirtieth day of June, one thousand seven hundred and fifty pay to the chamberlain of London, the clerk of the merchants hall in Bristol, or the town clerk of Liverpool respectively, the sum of forty shillings each, for their freedom in the said company, shall be the first freemen and members of the said new company established by this act: and that, from and after the said thirtieth day of June, one thousand seven hundred and fifty, any other of his Majesty's subjects, trading, or intending to trade to or from Africa, shall