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 236 THE FIRST ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY in an active state, are " Lloyd's " and the Stock Ex- change. As handicrafts grew into manufactures, and as trade expanded into commerce, the system developed into corporations for foreign enterprise, such as the Mer- chants of the Staple, the Fraternity of St. Thomas a Becket (afterwards the Merchant Adventurers), and the Muscovy Company. Each company held a charter from the sovereign creating it a corporate body and assign- ing to it the exclusive privilege of a certain class of business, with powers to regulate the conduct of the business in the common interest of the members. While the stability of corporate management was thus se- cured, the individual liberty of each member was gen- erally maintained, down to the time of Queen Mary. But the sea-commerce of Elizabeth, especially during the long state of war with Spain from 1585 to her death in 1603, demanded the strength of a closer union. Her last great charter, that of the East India Company, marks the final stage of the process. It gave powers as ample as ever from the crown to the corporate body, but it further fortified those powers by curtailing the individual liberty of the members. The corporate body could alone send forth voyages, and could alone con- duct them, the separate members could no longer trade on their own account. The loss of private initiative was the price paid for the increased strength of cor- porate action. The East India Company may thus be regarded as the mercantile expression of those forces of union which