Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/300

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240 THE FIKST ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY for the natural development of the Regulated Company from the mediaeval trade guild, a development not due to the " address " of " particular companies of mer- chants," but a necessary adaptation of old forms to the growing requirements of trade. Instructive as are Adam Smith's historical sections on Regulated Com- panies, they are from an outsider's point of view. I intend, from the contemporary records of the East India Company, to show the actual working of the Regulated system in its mature Elizabethan growth. Admission to the " one body corporate and politic Ji of " the Governor and Company of Merchants of Lon- don trading to the East Indies," might be obtained by purchase of a share in a voyage, or by redemption, or by presentation, or by patrimony, or by apprenticeship. The last four methods require few words. Admission by patrimony, that is of sons of members on reaching twenty-one years of age, and by apprenticeship, was provided for in the charter. Apprenticeship also came to include foreign employment, as in the case of Samuel Husbands, " in regard he had served the company ten years in India." The apprentice or servant, on admis- sion, paid a small sum, from ten to forty shillings, for the poor. In the case of sons born after their father had ceased to be a member, admission was " of grace, not of right," and on payment of a fine say of 10. Admission by presentation or a faculty, " for the mak- ing of a free man," was occasionally granted to some nobleman or powerful member. Admission by redemp- tion became common when the company got into low