ompetition. It is when we turn to North America that the importance of
the chartered company, as a colonizing rather than a trading agency, is
seen in its full development. The "Hudson's Bay Company," which still
exists as a commercial concern, is dealt with under its own heading, but
most of the thirteen British North American colonies were in their
inception chartered companies very much in the modern acceptation of the
term. The history of these companies will be found under the heading of
the different colonies of which they were the origin. It is necessary,
however, to bear in mind that two classes of charters are to be found in
force among the early American colonies: (1) Those granted to trading
associations, which were often useful when the colony was first founded,
but which formed a serious obstacle to its progress when the country had
become settled and was looking forward to commercial expansion; the
existence of these charters then often led to serious conflicts between
the grantees of the charter and the colonies; ultimately elective
assemblies everywhere superseded control of trading companies. (2) The
second class of charters were those granted to the settlers themselves,
to protect them against the oppressions of the crown and the provincial
governors. These were highly prized by the colonists.

In France and Holland, no less than in England, the institution of
chartered companies became a settled principle of the governments of
those countries during the whole of the period in question. In France
from 1599 to 1789, more than 70 of such companies came into existence,
but after 1770, when the great _Compagnie des Indes orientales_ went
into liquidation, they were almost abandoned, and finally perished in
the general sweeping away of privileges which followed on the outbreak
of the Revolution.

If we inquire into the economic ideas which induced the granting of
charters to these earlier companies and animated their promoters, we
shall find that they were entirely consistent with the general
principles of government at the time and what were then held to be sound
commercial views. Under the old regime everything was a matter of
monopoly and privilege, and to this state of things the constitution of
the old companies corresponded, the sovereign rights accorded to them
being also quite in accordance with the views of the time. It would have
been thought impossible then that private individuals could have fou