New England, and laid the foundations of civil liberty in the New World. Besides planting these settlements in the New World, the Eng lish during this same reign established themselves in the ancient country of India. In 1612 the East India Company, which had been chartered by Elizabeth in 1600, established their first tradingpost at Surat. This was the humble beginning of the gigantic English empire in the East.
Contest between James and the Commons.—We have made mention of James's idea of the divine right of kingship. Such a view of royal authority and privileges was sure to bring him into conflict with Parliament, especially with the House of Commons. He was constantly dissolving Parliament and sending the members home, because they insisted upon considering subjects which he had told them they should let alone.
The chief matters of dispute between the king and the Commons were the limits of the authority of the former in matters touching legislation and taxation, and the nature and extent of the privileges and jurisdictions of the latter.
As to the limits of the royal power, James talked and acted as though his prerogatives were practically unbounded. He issued proclamations which in their scope were really laws, and then enforced these royal edicts by fines and imprisonment, as though they were regular statutes of Parliament. Moreover, taking advantage of some uncertainty in the law as regards the power of the king to collect customs at the ports of the realm, he laid new and unusual duties upon imports and exports. James's judges were servile enough to sustain him in this course, some of them going so far as to say that "the sea-ports are the king's gates, which he may open and shut to whom he pleases."
As to the privileges of the Commons, that body insisted, among other things, upon their right to determine all cases of contested election of their members, and to debate freely all questions concerning the common weal, without being liable to prosecution or imprisonment for words spoken in the House. James denied
