. It is a very anomalous species of power and property
which is held by the East India Company. Our English prerogative law
does not furnish principles, much less precedents, by which it can be
defined or adjusted. Nothing but the eminent dominion of Parliament over
every British subject, in every concern, and in every circumstance in
which he is placed, can adjust this new, intricate matter. Parliament
may act wisely or unwisely, justly or unjustly; but Parliament alone is
competent to it.

[66] The attempt upon charters and the privileges of the corporate
bodies of the kingdom in the reigns of Charles the Second and James the
Second was made by the _crown_. It was carried on by the ordinary course
of law, in courts instituted for the security of the property and
franchises of the people. This attempt made by the _crown_ was attended
with complete success. The corporate rights of the city of London, and
of all the companies it contains, were by solemn judgment of law
declared forfeited, and all their franchises, privileges, properties,
and estates were of course seized into the hands of the _crown_. The
injury was from the crown: the redress was by Parliament. A bill was
brought into the _House of Commons_, by which the judgment against the
city of London, and against the companies, was reversed: and this bill
passed the House of Lords without any complaint of trespass on their
jurisdiction, although the bill was for a reversal of a judgment in law.
By this act, which is in the second of William and Mary, chap. 8, the
question of forfeiture of that charter is forever taken out of the power
of any court of law: no cognizance can be taken of it except in
Parliament.

Although the act above mentioned has declared the judgment against the
corporation of London to be _illegal_ yet Blackstone makes no scruple of
asserting, that, "perhaps, in strictness of law, the proceedings in most
of them [the Quo Warranto causes] were sufficiently regular," leaving it
in doubt, whether this regularity did not apply to the corporation of
London, as well as to any of the rest; and he seems to blame the
proceeding (as most blamable it was) not so much on account of
illegality as for the crown's having employed a legal proceeding for
political purposes. He calls it "an exertion of _an act of law_ for the
purposes of the state."

The same security which was given to the city of London, would have been
extended to all the corporations, if t