Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	concern_v	great_a	king_n	2,509	5	3.3499	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52791	A letter to a lord concerning a bill to incorporate the old East-India Company	N. N.	1698 (1698)	Wing N42A; ESTC R41467	4,536	2

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