The West India Company and the Walloons. 55 



which colonies were to be under the control of the company. If any 

 of the natives cheated the company under the guise of friendship, or 

 if the company suffered the loss of their money or their goods without 

 receiving restitution or payment for them; or if the company were 

 badly treated — the charter not specifying what acts should constitute 

 bad treatment, and leaving the company to be the sole judges of the 

 fact, whether or not they were badly treated — then and in all these 

 cases, the company were permitted to use the best methods in their 

 power to obtain satisfaction, according to the situation of their affairs; 

 a privilege as vague in its definitions as the causes which might occa- 

 sion its exercise, and making the company the sole arbiters of the lives 

 and property of all the people over whom its authority might extend. 

 They could not be deprived without their consent of any ships, ord- 

 nance or ammunition even if the same were needed for the use of the 

 mother country, and at the same time were allowed to pass freely with 

 their ships and goods without paying any toll to the United Provinces. 

 And all this tremendous power, although vested in five chambers of 

 managers in different cities of the Netherlands, was in reality vested 

 in nineteen men by whom all the business was managed and finally 

 settled; the only reservation being, that in case of resolving upon a 

 war, the approbation of the States General should first be sought. And 

 as if the committing all these affairs to nineteen men would not make 

 the company a sufficiently close corporation, it was also provided that 

 no one during the existence of the charter, could withdraw his capital, 

 nor could any new member be admitted; thus preventing not only the 

 sale but the transfer of the stock, and so effectually closing the door 

 against the financial sports of the present day, the merry bull fights 

 and the joyous bear baitings. And so the company begins its opera- 

 tion under the following preamble: That the States General had seen 

 fit to form the corporation because the prosperity of the countries over 

 which it should rule and the welfare of their inhabitants depended 

 largely on navigation and trade which had been carried on happily in 

 former times, and had proved a great blessing to all countries and 

 kingdoms; and further that the trade might be increased in conform- 

 ity to the treaties and covenants under which they should enter ; and 

 that experience had shown them that without the assistance, interpo- 

 sition and help of a general company, the people who desired to go to 

 these foreign lands could not be properly protected and maintained in 

 their great risk from pirates, extortion and otherwise, which would 

 happen iu so very long a voyage. 

 The beneficent nature of this preamble, when compared with the 



