ought in a bill to impose stamp duties upon all
vellum, parchment, and paper, used in almost every kind of intercourse
between man and man; and they crowned the oppression of the year with
another grievous tax upon carriages, under the name of a bill for
licensing and regulating hackney and stage coaches.

EAST INDIA COMPANY'S CHArTER.

The commons, in a clause of the bill for taxing several joint-stocks,
provided, that in case of a default in the payment of that tax, within
the time limited by the act, the charter of the company so failing
should be deemed void and forfeited. The East India company actually
neglected their payment, and the public imagined the ministry would
seize this opportunity of dissolving a monopoly against which so
many complaints had been made; but the directors understood their own
strength; and, instead of being broken, obtained the promise of a new
charter. This was no sooner known, than the controversy between them
and their adversaries was revived with such animosity, that the council
thought proper to indulge both parties with a hearing. As this produced
no resolution, the merchants who opposed the company petitioned, that,
in the meanwhile, the new charter might be suspended. Addresses of the
same kind were presented by a great number of clothiers, linen-drapers,
and other dealers. To these a written answer was published by the
company; the merchants printed a reply, in which they undertook to prove
that the company had been guilty of unjust and unwarrantable actions,
tending to the scandal of religion, the dishonour of the nation, the
reproach of our laws, the oppression of the people, and the ruin of
trade. They observed, that two private ships had exported in one year
three times as many cloths as the company had exported in three years.
They offered to send more cloth and English merchandise to the Indies
in one year than the company had exported in five; to furnish the
government with five hundred tons of saltpetre for less than one half
of the usual price; and they represented, that the company could neither
load the ships they petitioned for in England, nor reload them in the
East Indies. In spite of all these remonstrances, the new charter passed
the great seal; though the grants contained in it were limited in such a
manner that they did not amount to an exclusive privilege, and subjected
the company to such alterations, restrictions, and qualifications, as
the king should