Chap. X.] PRIVILEGES CONFERRED. 235
Indies, "and therefore shall be driven to carry to those parts, in their voyages ad. leoo.
outward, divei's and sundiy commodities which are likely to be returned again" into the realm, the exports of then* four first voyages are declared "free of custom, subsidy, or pomidage, or any other duties or payments." On imports, during the whole period of the charter, credit of six months on the one half, and of twelve months on the other half, of the duties exigible, is to be allowed after sufficient security for ultimate pa}Tnent has been given ; and bfecause the company "are like to bring to this our realm a much greater quantity of foreign commodities" than can be required for home consumption, tlie duties which might have been exigible on the export of such commodities as are afterwards reshipped for transport to other countries are to be remitted, provided the reshipment take place in English bottoms, and not later tiian thirteen months from the date of import. The only other privilege necessary to be mentioned is the permission annually to export the sum of £30,000 in bullion or coin, of which at least £6000 should previoasly be coined at the royal mint. Tliis permission — which, owing to the crude idea« then generally entertained on the subject of the cm-rency, was probably regarded at the time fis tlie least defensible of all — was granted only on the express proviso, that after the first voyage a sum at least equal to that exported should previously have been imported.
Though the original adventurers contemplated trading on a joint-stock, and svibscription several parts of the charter seem framed on the understanding that this mentof original intention was to be carried out, the subject remains involved in the gi-eatest obscmnty. The words joint dock do not once occur in tl»e charter; and there is nothing in any part of it to indicate that the 218 individuals to whom the charter was granted possessed any higher (qualification than that of liaving signed the petition on which it proceeded. It is known that 101 individuals or firms became bound by their subscriptions to adventiu*e on an experimental voyage, sums which, in the great majority of cases, amounted to £200 each, and fonned an aggregate of £30,133, 6.s'. 8d; but whether these were the only sums subscribed at the date of the charter, or whether all the new parties who con- curred in petitioning the crovn had previoasly qujilified themselves for member- ship by subscribing, are points which it is impossible to decide with any degree of certainty. The only clause in the charter which bears on these points is one wiiich makes it optional for the company to disfranchise those members who slu)uld fail against a certain day to pay up their subscriptions. The clause is as follows : —
" Proviiled always that if any of the persons before named and appointed by these presents, to be free of the said Companif of Merchant of Lomhm, trading into the Etvut Itulics, shall not before the going forth of the fleet appointed for this first voyage, from the poi-t of London, bring in and deliver to the treasurer or treasurers appointed, or which, within the space of twenty days from the date hereof, shall be appointed by the said governor and company, or the more part of them, to receive the contributions and adventures, set down
stock.
