20 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



This he proceeded to do in December, 1696, begging the Board 

 of Trade, at least to delay the granting of the desired charter 

 until the commissioners appointed to investigate the country 

 should return.^ 



In the same month, the subscribers to the undertaking again 

 petitioned the Board of Trade on behalf of their enterprise. 

 They set forth the advantages of a joint-stock company, as 

 against private undertakings, and agreed to have their charter 

 declared null and void, if they could be proven to have wilfully 

 broken its terms.- In a memorial presented in April of the 

 following year, by certain New England traders praying for 

 military assistance for the colony, the opportunity was taken to 

 protest against the Dudley charter as a "base monopoly of trade 

 under the specious pretense of supplying His Majesty with 

 naval stores, etc."" On the other hand, Colonel Lidget, a Ncav 

 England merchant, in "Some Considerations for Advancing 

 the Trade of New England," strongly advocated the production 

 of stores by chartered companies,* and at the request of the 

 Board of Trade, he drafted a charter suitable for such a pur- 

 pose.^ 



The Board sent a dratt to the Privy Council almost identical 

 with that suggested by Lidget, with the addition of a number of 

 clauses containing specifications for the employment of stock 

 and for the quantities of stores to be imported within prescribed 

 limits of time, together with several elaborate provisos to pre- 

 vent stock-jobbing and frauds." A copy of these proposals was 



^Protest from Ashurst against the Dudley petition, B. T. New Eng., 

 A: 43. See account of the commission, pp. 9-14. 



^Dudley, etc., to the Board of Trade, B. T. New Eng., A: 47. 



■'Memorial from New England traders to Board of Trade, B. T. 

 New Eng. B: i. 



^Considerations offered by Col. Chas. Lidget, merchant of New 

 England, etc., B. T. New Eng., A: 34. 



^Lidget's Heads for a charter, B. T. New Eng., A: 65. 



*New Eng., Entry Bk. A, May 7, 1697. The proviso against stock- 

 jobbing ran as follows: " Provided always, and it is our will and 

 pleasure that these presents are and shall be upon the terms and 



