THE TWO FACTIONS WITHIN THE COMPANY 271 one of the generality proposed that individual members should, as under the Regulated system, be allowed to trade on their own account. The traffic was passing into the hands of interlopers, and if the Company could not send forth ships itself, why should it preclude its members from doing so? The governing body found it difficult to answer this argument, and temporized by allowing private mem- bers to trade to India on a payment to the Company for the privilege. But the concession amounted to a change from the Joint Stock to the Regulated system, in opposition to the terms of the late Parliamentary settlement of 1650. So in March, 1654, the governing body took a firmer stand. They decided that " it is not in the power of this Court to give liberty to any private persons to trade to India; but if any do it, it is at their own peril. And thereupon the votes of Parliament were read, concerning the carrying on of the trade in a Joint Stock.' ' Issue was thus definitely joined between the two great parties which have always divided mercantile opinion in England with regard to the Indian trade. Under the first Stuarts the conflict was waged between the Company and individuals or associations licensed, in infringement of the Company's charter, by the king. Under the Commonwealth it widened into a struggle between the conservative section of the Company and a forward party within itself, but allied to the outside capitalists who claimed an open trade to India. Under the Restoration it became a war of law-suits between
