a right to grant special commercial privileges to particular societies and to particular individuals; and our ancestors, as usual, did not think it worth their while to dispute this claim, till it produced serious inconvenience. At length, in the reign of Elizabeth, the power of creating monopolies began to be grossly abused; and, as soon as it began to be grossly abused, it began to be questioned. The Queen wisely declined a conflict with a House of Commons backed by the whole nation. She frankly acknowledged that there was reason for complaint; she cancelled the patents which had excited the public clamours; and her people, delighted by this concession, and by the gracious manner in which it had been made, did not require from her an express renunciation of the disputed prerogative.
The discontents which her wisdom had appeased were revived by the dishonest and pusillanimous policy which her successor called Kingcraft. He readily granted oppressive patents of monopoly. When he needed the help of his Parliament, he as readily annulled them. As soon as the Parliament had ceased to sit, his Great Seal was put to instruments more odious than those which he had recently cancelled. At length that excellent House of Commons which met in 1623 determined to apply a strong remedy to the evil. The King was forced to give his assent to a law which declared monopolies established by royal authority to be null and void. Some exceptions, however, were made, and, unfortunately, were not very clearly defined. It was especially provided that every Society of Merchants which had been instituted for the purpose of carrying on any trade should retain all its legal privileges.[1] The question whether a monopoly granted by the Crown to such a company were or were not a legal privilege was left unsettled, and continued to exercise, during many years, the ingenuity of lawyers.[2]
- ↑ Stat. 21 Jac. I. c. 3.
- ↑ See particularly Two Letters by a Barrister concerning the East Indian Company (1676), and an Answer to the Two Letters published in the same year. See also the Judgment of Lord Jeffreys concerning the Great Case of Monopolies. this judgement was published in 1689, after the downfall of Jeffreys. It was thought necessary to apologise in the preface for printing anything that bore so odious a name. "to commend this argument," says the editor, "I'll not undertake, because of the author. But yet I may tell you what is told me, that it is
