Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/299

 LIMITED LIABILITY AND JOINT STOCK 239 the intermediate link between the mediaeval trade guilds, and the modern commercial associations under the Companies' Acts. The personal independence of members of the earlier Regulated Companies was trans- ferred from the individual member to the group of subscribers to each voyage. Their liability was limited to their individual subscriptions. Yet the company, acting as a whole, could increase the amount of a sep- arate subscription by a pro rata levy, to meet the re- quirements of the voyage. For the first voyage, for example, an extra call of 2s. in the pound was made, according to the Court Minutes of April 1, 1601; and in all a levy of 4s. in the pound above the subscribed sums was made, according to the Minutes of July 6, 1601. These levies required for their enforcement the aid of the Privy Council. This early form of limited liability and joint stock has never, so far as I am aware, been examined from the actual records of a corporation. Adam Smith's classical passage still forms the best account of the Regulated Company. But his reflections are biassed by a misconception as to the origin of such privileged bodies. " In the greater part of the commercial states of Europe," he writes regarding the protection of trade by the ruling power, " particular companies of mer- chants have had the address to persuade the legislature to intrust to them the performance of this part of the duty of the sovereign, together with all the powers which are necessarily connected with it." Such eight- eenth-century philosophizing does not sufficiently allow