the right to make regulations in regard to it. Till 1614 the joint stock was subscribed for each voyage separately, and at the end of the voyage was redivided. After that, for many years, the joint stock was subscribed for a longer or shorter term of years, and at the end of each term the old stock was usually taken at a valuation by the new subscribers. Membership in the corporation, however, soon became merely a formal matter,—useless, except to those interested in the joint stock, especially as regulations were passed forbidding other members from engaging in private trading ventures to India. After 1692 no private trading of any kind was allowed except to the captains and seamen of the Company's ships. The form, however, was still retained, and every purchaser of stock who was not a member of the Company was obliged to pay a fee of £5 for membership.
At this time (1692) there were but two other joint-stock companies of any importance in England,—the Royal African Company and the recently chartered[1] Hudson's Bay Company. The outline given above will serve to indicate their general nature and also to show how something like the modern joint-stock corporation grew out of the union of the ideas of association for the government of a particular trade by those who carried it on, and of combination of capital and mutual cooperation, suggested and made necessary by the great expense incident to carrying on trade with distant countries. But the corporation was far from being regarded as simply an organization for the more convenient prosecution of business. It was looked on as a public agency, to which had been confided the due regulation of foreign trade, just as the domestic trades were subject to the government of the guilds. In a little book, entitled "The Law of Corporations," published anonymously in 1702,[2] it is said: "The general intent and end of all civil incorporations is for better government, either general or special. The corporations for general government are those of cities and towns, mayor and citizens, mayor and burgesses, mayor and commonalty, etc. Special government is so called because it is remitted to the managers of particular things, as trade, charity, and the like, for government, whereof several companies and corporations for trade were erected, and several hospitals and houses for charity."[3]
