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 It is, however, interesting to observe that in the case of the Admiral's men, the legal instruments which secured the continuity of the services of individual actors sometimes at least took the form, for sharers no less than for hirelings, not of bonds given to their fellows, but of contracts of service entered into, under penalties for breach, with Henslowe himself. As it was open to Henslowe to terminate these contracts, the constitution of the company was to a certain extent dependent upon his good will, and in fact he more than once refers to them as 'my company'.[1] He was not, however, in any strict sense the 'director' or even the 'manager' of the company. Dr. Greg more aptly describes him as their 'banker'.[2] The entries of his advances on their behalf are so worded as to imply that they were made on specific authorities given by one or more leading members of the company; and some of these authorities in fact exist in the shape of letters asking Henslowe to make payments to poets in respect of plays which the company have heard and approved. That in practice the banker had a considerable say in influencing the policy of the company is probable enough; and also that to the poor devils of poets he, rather than the actors, must have often appeared in the welcome guise of paymaster. Both poets and actors were under frequent personal obligations to him for small loans; and he sometimes found the capital sum necessary to enable an actor to become a sharer, and took it back by instalments. *