The company were further authorized to transport any subjects or strangers willing to become subjects of the crown to the colony, and to carry on trade to and from it, without custom or subsidy for seven years, and were to be free of all taxation of imports or exports to and from the English dominion for the space of twenty-one years, with the exception of a five per cent duty. The charter further provided, that all subjects of the crown, who should become inhabitants, and their children born there, or on the seas going or returning, should enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects, as if they and every of them were born within the realm of England. Full legislative authority was also given, subject to the restriction of not being contrary to the laws of England, as also for the imposition of fines and mulcts "according to the course of other corporations in England."[1] Many other provisions were added, similar in substance to those found in the antecedent colonial charters of the crown.
§ 64. Such were the original limits of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and such were the powers and privileges conferred on it. It is observable, that the whole structure of the charter presupposes the residence of the company in England, and the transaction of all its business there. The experience of the past had not sufficiently instructed the adventurers, that settlements in America could not be well governed by corporations resident abroad;[2] or if any of them had arrived at such a conclusion, there were many reasons for presuming, that the crown would be jealous of granting powers of so large a nature, which were to be exercised at such