than the plan hitherto
followed, lay on the New Company. The Old Company had merely to find
objections to every change that was proposed; and such objections there
was little difficulty in finding. The members of the New Company were
ill provided with the means of purchasing support at Court and in
Parliament. They had no corporate existence, no common treasury. If
any of them gave a bribe, he gave it out of his own pocket, with little
chance of being reimbursed. But the Old Company, though surrounded
by dangers, still held its exclusive privileges, and still made its
enormous profits. Its stock had indeed gone down greatly in value since
the golden days of Charles the Second; but a hundred pounds still sold
for a hundred and twenty-two. [180] After a large dividend had been paid
to the proprietors, a surplus remained amply sufficient, in those
days, to corrupt half a cabinet; and this surplus was absolutely at the
disposal of one able, determined and unscrupulous man, who maintained
the fight with wonderful art and pertinacity.

The majority of the Commons wished to effect a compromise, to retain the
Old Company, but to remodel it, to impose on it new conditions, and to
incorporate with it the members of the New Company. With this view it
was, after long and vehement debates and close divisions, resolved that
the capital should be increased to a million and a half. In order to
prevent a single person or a small junto from domineering over the whole
society, it was determined that five thousand pounds of stock should
be the largest quantity that any single proprietor could hold, and that
those who held more should be required to sell the overplus at any price
not below par. In return for the exclusive privilege of trading to the
Eastern seas, the Company was to be required to furnish annually five
hundred tons of saltpetre to the Crown at a low price, and to export
annually English manufactures to the value of two hundred thousand
pounds. [181]

A bill founded on these resolutions was brought in, read twice, and
committed, but was suffered to drop in consequence of the positive
refusal of Child and his associates to accept the offered terms. He
objected to every part of the plan; and his objections are highly
curious and amusing. The great monopolist took his stand on the
principles of free trade. In a luminous and powerfully written paper he
exposed the absurdity of the expedients which the House of Commons had
devi