ed to their
offices, that we cannot frame a complete legal idea of any of these
persons, but we must also have an idea of a corporation, capable to
transmit his rights to his successors, at the same time. Another
method of implication, whereby the king's consent is presumed, is as
to all corporations by _prescription_, such as the city of London, and
many others[h], which have existed as corporations, time whereof the
memory of man runneth not to the contrary; and therefore are looked
upon in law to be well created. For though the members thereof can
shew no legal charter of incorporation, yet in cases of such high
antiquity the law presumes there once was one; and that by the variety
of accidents, which a length of time may produce, the charter is lost
or destroyed. The methods, by which the king's consent is expressly
given, are either by act of parliament or charter. By act of
parliament, of which the royal assent is a necessary ingredient,
corporations may undoubtedly be created[i]: but it is observable, that
most of those statutes, which are usually cited as having created
corporations, do either confirm such as have been before created by
the king; as in the case of the college of physicians, erected by
charter 10 Hen. VIII[k], which charter was afterwards confirmed in
parliament[l]; or, they permit the king to erect a corporation _in
futuro_ with such and such powers; as is the case of the bank of
England[m], and the society of the British fishery[n]. So that the
immediate creative act is usually performed by the king alone, in
virtue of his royal prerogative[o].

[Footnote h: 2 Inst. 330.]

[Footnote i: 10 Rep. 29. 1 Roll. Abr. 512. [Transcriber's Note:
footnote marker missing in original.]]

[Footnote k: 8 Rep. 114.]

[Footnote l: 14 & 15 Hen. VIII. c. 5.]

[Footnote m: Stat. 5 & 6 W. & M. c. 20.]

[Footnote n: Stat. 23 Geo. II. c. 4.]

[Footnote o: See page 263.]

ALL the other methods therefore whereby corporations exist, by common
law, by prescription, and by act of parliament, are for the most part
reducible to this of the king's letters patent, or charter of
incorporation. The king's creation may be performed by the words
"_creamus, erigimus, fundamus, incorporamus_," or the like. Nay it is
held, that if the king grants to a set of men to have _gildam
mercatoriam_, a mercantile meeting or assembly[p], this is alone
sufficient to incorporate and establish them for ever[q].

[Footnote p: _Gild_