Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A52791
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A letter to a lord concerning a bill to incorporate the old East-India Company
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N. N.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing N42A; ESTC R41467
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4,536
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2
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asked upon the Law If the Law is not so strictly penned as it should be since all England knows what it was intended to be it should with submission be construed as it was designed Your Lordships who are the last resort of Equity as well as Law will doubtless in this matter of so great Importance bestir your selves to do the utmost Justice Publick Credit without which Communities can scarce subsist is concerned to have this Bargain made good entirely If Men cannot lend Money upon Acts of Parliament the Government must deal hereafter with none but Pawn-brokers and take it up upon Plate and Jewels as the King of Poland was forced lately to do in the business of Elbing I have said enough to your Lordship about Publick Credit when you have allowed me the Honour to be admitted into your most retired Conversations and I have found your Lordship so satisfied that it is to be maintained with utmost nicety that I need say no more to you upon that Head but for the sake of others I must be a little more express Unless a Nation is sure it shall never more make War the Publick Faith ought to be kept free from all Suspicion Machiavei observed so long ago as his Time that Money was the Sinews of War It is evidently more and more so since because the World is better acquainted with Encamping and a Battel or two does not now decide the Controversies between Princes A wise and a cautious General in our Days can preserve a Country from those rough Decisions and we seldom now hear of Armies so routed that they can never rally again Taking good Ground and furnishing Provisions for an Army are become a great part of the present Art of War The last Article of Military skill depends not on good Troops but lasting Purses When Publick credit is preserved chast and unspotted Men think in a Publick Calamity that the Exchequer of the Common-wealth is the safest Repository of their Treasure nay if your own Country cannot furnish you with Coin enough Forreigners will with their Wealth as well as Men enable you to maintain the War So that you do not only depend upon your self but have all the Neutral World ready to supply you with Men or Money This Act supposed we might be assisted with Foreign Money and the Danes who were not concern'd either on the Confederates or French side lent us Troops It was the opinion that men had of our Publick Credit that enabled us more than any thing else to humble France But had it been plain that an Act of Parliament was not a Security to be depended upon whatever difficulties and dangers had beset the Government all men would have endeavoured to hide their Plate and Money and made their particular Property the last stake to be play'd off But my Lord I must not be too tedious on this or any other Head I will only tell your Lordship that I suspect that this Bill is not the only attack that the Old East-India Company design to make upon our Publick Credit Methinks there are two plain Reasons for this surmise One Reason is what I have already mentioned viz. That as they last Year Petitioned against the Five per Cent. they now whilst this Bill was passing opposed that and all other Explanations of the late Act. My other Reason is because meer Incorporation will little redound to their Benefit unless vying with the New Company and so making Goods dearer in the Indies and by that means confounding the Trade till our Neighbours swallow it up are reckoned by them Advantages My Lord I know not what they mean for they must have some strange and very hidden designs because they are men that are very well acquainted with the World and the business of it and I think I may Challenge the Old East-India Company to shew so much as one Precedent in any Country whatsoever of two Companies trading with two distinct Joynt-stocks to the same place My Lord Your Lordships are the standing and dernier Arbitrators of this Realm and with submission I humbly conceive that it will be a nobler employment of your Lordships time to take the quarrel that is between the two Companies into your own hands than to pass an Act in favour of one They on both sides pretend they have been fair and treatable but I see nothing that comes of their treating with one another There may be avaritious and artful men in both Companies who may find their accompt in keeping up the difference but such designing men will find it a hard task to impose upon your Lordships There are in your House Noble Minds who have not thought it below their Dignity in an Island supported by Traffick and Navigation to understand Accompts and Trade and sure it will be as well for the Nation to have their respective Claims at first determined by your Lordships as when they have walked through the Courts of Westminster-Hall into your House My Lord If your Lordships take up the matter If you now resolve what both sides shall be contented with then there will be an end of those convulsive struggles between both these great Factions which may possibly otherwise one time or other under such circumstances as may happen endanger the whole State My Lord I will conclude but must first say that I humbly conceive it necessary for the Honour of England it self that you should enter upon this matter for it is impossible for us to know what Treaties his Majesty's Embassador may have begun with the Great Mogul and should we send thither Instructions Acts of Parliament and Reports that contradict one another we should at least be infallibly reckoned an inconstant and faithless People I will make no Apology to your Lordship for speaking my thoughts thus boldly for you ever give me that Liberty But if any thing I have said offend others let them believe candidly of my Intention and correct my Errors by an Answer I am as becomes my obligations My Lord Your Lordships most Devoted and most Humble Servant N. N.
Bill read 24 Jan 1700. N. N. A LETTER to a LORD concerning a Bill to incorporate the Old East-India Company My Lord I Have read something and heard a great deal concerning Common-wealths but remain still of Opinion that there never was any Constitution better contriv'd than our own for the Conservation of Publick or Common Good Nothing can pass into a Law in England 'till it has undergone the different and distinct Examinations of the King the House of Lords and the Representatives of the Commons of England And my Lord I am so far from agreeing with the extravagancy of the late Times in thinking your Lordships useless that I am very confident you are in many respects a very happy as well as an essential checque in our Constitution Your Lordships have no Professions to biass your Debates Lawyers have been observed to make our Statutes intricate and for their own purpose A very sensible People would never suffer Merchants or trading Men how honest soever to have any thing to do with the Legislature 'till they had for many Years laid aside all Trade lest their Interests or Affections should be too hard for their Inclinations to do good But it is not only your Lordships being exempt from Callings but your being exempt from the necessity of courting Factions for your share in making Laws that adds Impartiality and weight to whatever passes your House Perhaps there is too often Occasions for your Lordships to exercise your Aristocratical Power I could wish you exerted it as often as there was occasion I am not sure whether a Bill now before you does not justly and loudly call for the Power to which you were born It is your Station You are brought up to consider Publick Treaties with Foreign Princes You know the Decency that is due to the chief Administrators of Affairs You know how much the Honour of Kings and the Welfare of Nations are concerned in keeping punctually to every thing that is stipulated by those who negotiate for the respective States All this is little more than Preface and from a design not to fall too abruptly upon a matter that is now laid before your Lordships You are now possessed of a Bill to incorporate the Old East India Company I will not insist upon the several Addresses of the House of Commons to dissolve that Company And less will I repeat the Reasons that occasioned those Addresses I will begin no higher than 19 Jan. 1693. at which time the House of Commons of England declared it the Right of every English Subject to trade to the East-Indies unless prohibited by Act of Parliament and withal I beg leave to remind your Lordship that it was upon the Encouragement of this Vote that the Free-Traders began to launch boldly into the Traffick of those Parts but were far from invidiously endeavouring to shut out others from that Trade But the old East-India Company behaved themselves quite otherwise and soon perceiving that others as well as themselves could without having either Forts or Garrisons trade profitably to those Places they were presently as they had been constantly bent to make that Trade a Monopoly and so offered 4 May 1698. to lend the Goverment 700000 Pounds provided they might have the sole Trade thither settled upon them for 31 Years by Act of Parliament I will not trouble your Lordship with recounting how delatory and trifling nevertheless they were nor upon what fallacious Proviso's and Conditions they would after all have lent their Money It is sufficient to my present Purpose to set down that it was by reason of this Offer from the Old East-India Company that the House of Commons first empower'd the Committee of Ways and Means to receive Proposals to settle the Trade to the East-Indies and that the Gentlemen who are now the New Company if I may so say out-bid them and proposed to lend two Millions upon Condition that the said Trade should be secured solely to those that furnished that Sum. To this Proposal the Parliament agreed and this was the plain Bargain made between the Subscribers and the Legislature This is what the New Company expected what they lent their Money upon They did not doubt but that their Security would be well drawn They did not apprehend that any want of Grammar or the mistake of a Clerk if any such should be would raise any Constructions to their disadvantage And the Old Company had when the Act was made the very same thoughts believed theirs would be dissolved that there could be but one Company trading with a Joint-Stock to the East Indies Their own Applications by themselves and Council to your Lordships were as I know your Lordship who observes every thing can very easily recollect I say all the Applications of the Old Company were upon this Foundation His Majesty's Dissolution of them was but according to the Power he had reserved in their Charter was reserved and as I may say directed by the Act of Parliament was according to what the Old the New Company and all Men took for the Sense of the Act. And the Subscribers to the New Company were as careful to secure their Bargain They exacted the performance of all the necessary Forms for the Determination of the Old and would not subscribe 'till the Old Company 's Dissolution was actually signed And it was not 'till after that the Old Company had actually received notice of their Dissolution that Mr. John Dubois subscribed and so as all Men thought came in under the Terms of that Act which by the way the Old Company when it was first offered to them refused Your Lordship will hear from another Hand how destructive to the Trade two Companies will be and how groundless are their Suggestions for their being continued a Corporation how unnecessary it is to continue them so for the very Ends that they pretend I know your Lordship will steal time even from your Meals and Sleep rather than not be throughly informed in a matter of this Moment I know you will read all that is written upon the Subject and therefore I will not repeat what I know will be purposely handled in another Paper But I can't help saying that it seems strange since all that I have said is Fact that the Old Company should nevertheless last Year Petition the House of Commons not only to be continued a Corporation but to have the Five per Cent. taken off Indeed that Petition was then rejected But is it not yet stranger that they should this Sessions be able to get a Bill pass through that House to continue them a Corporation and have so powerful an Interest as that all Clauses to explain and confirm the Five per Cent. and to determine their being subject to the Rules and Restrictions of the general Society should be rejected The New Company know very well what they reckoned their Bargain and they are glad the Judges sit in your Lordships House to give their Opinions if