Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 2.djvu/129

 LAW OF BUSINESS CORPORATIONS. 111

This idea that the object of a business corporation is the public one of managing and ordering the trade in which it is engaged, as well as the private one of profit for its members, may also be noticed in the charters granted to new corporations, especially in the recitals, and in the provisions usually found that the newly chartered company shall have the exclusive control of the trade intrusted to it

At the end of the seventeenth century the advantages of corporate enterprises seem to have been realized, and acts of Parliament, au- thorizing the king to grant charters to various business associations, were more frequent. In 1692 the Company of Merchants of Lon- don trading to Greenland was incorporated ; * the act reciting the great importance of the Greenland trade, how it had fallen into the hands of other nations, and could only be regained by a greater undertaking than would be possible for a private individual, and the consequent necessity of a joint-stock company. In 1694 the Bank of England received its first charter.* The act authorizing it was essentially a scheme to raise money for the government. Those who advanced money to the government were to receive a corresponding interest in the bank, the capital of which was to consist of the debt of the government. No other association of more than six persons was allowed to carry on a similar business.^ Charters were also granted about this time to the National Land Bank,^ the Royal Lustring Company,* the Company of Mine Adventurers,^ the famous South Sea Company,^ the Royal Exchange and the London (Marine) Assurance Companies.® In these charters also the public interest in having the undertaking prosecuted and the great expense incident thereto are mentioned. The capital of the South Sea Company, like that of the Bank, consisted of a debt due from the government on account of money loaned by private individuals.

The extravagant commercial speculations in joint-stock com- panies and the stock-jobbing in their shares which characterized the early part of the eighteenth century are well known. Ander- son, in his "History of Commerce,"^ enumerates upwards of

> 4 and 5 Wm. III., c. 17. * 5 and 6 Wm. III., c. 20.

« By Slat. 6 Anne, c. 22. § 9. * 7 and 8 Wm. III., c. 31.

» 9 and 10 Wm. III., c. 43. • See 9 Anne, c. 24.

' 9 Anne, c. 21. 85 Geo. I., c. 18.
 * Vol. i. (xst ed.) 291 et seq.