Attempts to Form Chartered Companies. 37 



represent the government, were the tribunal before which the 

 case of the petitioners must be pleaded. The analysis of the 

 argument on both sides would be somewhat as follows: The 

 petitioners based their defense on the grounds of commercial 

 expediency, supported by arguments to prove the advantages 

 which the nation would reap from their success. The colonies, 

 on the one hand, and the non-incorporated merchants on the 

 other, appeared as witnesses against them. As business men, 

 the petitioners without doubt put their own interest before that 

 of the kingdom. They would not have ventured to float their 

 capital, nor would they have argued their case so persistently, 

 had they not definitely expected to make money out of the oper- 

 ation. The government rejected the suits of both Dudley and 

 Byfield on the ground that they w^ere seeking their personal ad- 

 vantage rather than the good of the nation. But it was hardly to 

 be expected that any merchants, except, possibly, at a serious 

 national crisis, would import merchandise at a loss, out of sheer 

 patriotism. Self-interest was undoubtedly uppermost when the 

 Dudley Company, perceiving that the working of copper mines 

 was not a popular venture, seized upon the sudden interest of 

 the country in bringing naval stores from America, and 

 changed the character of their designs, in the hope that a naval 

 store company would stand a better chance of obtaining a char- 

 ter.^ The first draft of their proposed charter implied the vesting 

 in the company of a power which was more than merely com- 

 mercial, since it was to be based on extensive tenure of land. 

 The New Englanders regarded the petition with great alarm, 

 for the engrossment of land, disputes over titles, and the con- 

 flicts of the company with local authority which they foresaw, 

 seriously threatened the interests of the colonies. Their protest 

 was prompt and emphatic; and it was repeated at every oppor- 

 tunity until the danger was passed. The government tried to 

 solve the land question by simply forbidding the company to 

 purchase any land whatever; but Dudley remonstrated that 

 such a restriction would make their undertaking quite impossi- 

 ble, and a limitation was proposed as a compromise. 



iCf. p. 17, 



