36 Industrial Experiments in Colonial America. 



sage of the Bounty Act, their case might be favorably recom- 

 mended to the Commissioners of the Navy and an encouraging 

 price given. They had refused 50 shiUings a barrel for it at 

 Lisbon, free of charge, in order that they might serve the gov- 

 ernment.^ Whether their request met with favor does not ap- 

 pear; but they continued to trade in naval stores on their orig- 

 inal basis, and five years later offered to contract with the 

 Navy. Mr. Byfield appeared before the Board of Trade in per- 

 son, and "said in discourse that those commodities could not be 

 had in Sweden at the rates he offered them for."- 



The history of the Dudley and Byfield petitions has been re- 

 lated with some detail, because the commercial problems which 

 they involved affected not only the importation of colonial prod- 

 ucts, but also the burning question of chartered companies; or, 

 in more general terms, the question of the best method of regu- 

 lating trade in the interest of the mercantile system. So far as 

 the principles which underlie them are concerned, therefore, 

 the two cases may be treated as one. Matters were compli- 

 cated by the fact that several different bodies were concerned 

 with the final judgment of the case, and at least five points of 

 view were represented. The petitioners were, in the first in- 

 stance, brought before the Board of Trade; but that body could 

 only recommend to the Crown, /. c, to the Privy Council, the 

 granting of such charters. The Privy Council made it a prac- 

 tice to refer cases requiring legal scrutiny to the appointed legal 

 advisers of the Crown. In this particular question of naval 

 stores, the Admiralty were immediately interested, and also, as 

 a matter of business, the Navy Board. When it is recollected 

 that just at the end of the century, Montague was making good 

 his affirmation that Parliament alone had the right to incor- 

 porate joint-stock companies, the complexity of the question 

 becomes still more apparent. 



The Board of Trade, the Admiralty, the Navy, the Attorney 

 General and the Privy Council, who may be taken together to 



^Memorial from Thos. Byfield & Co., B. T. Proprieties, N: 38. 

 ^Record of attendance of Mr. Byfield at Whitehall with a memo- 

 rial in behalf of the Penn. Co., B. T. Journal, N, p. 303. 



