For far-flung enterprises and those where special arrangements
with foreign countries was required, there was sharing of stock of
companies, usually by merchants of the same type of goods. In
joint-stock companies each member took a certain number of shares
and all the selling of the goods of each merchant was carried on
by the officials of the company. The device of joint stock might
take the form of a fully incorporated body or of a less formal and
unincorporated syndicate. The greatest joint-stock company was
East India Company, chartered in 1600 to trade there in
competition with the Dutch East India Company. It was given a
fifteen year monopoly on trade east of the southern tip of Africa.
Unlike the Muscovy Company, and Merchants of the Staple,
individual members could not trade on their own account, but only
through the corporate body on its voyages. It was regulated as to
each particular voyage and helped with problems by the Crown and
Privy Council, for instance when further subscriptions were
needed, or when carpenters were needed to be pressed into service
for fitting out ships, or to deal with an unsuccessful captain.
Its charter retained many of the aspects of the medieval trade
guild: power to purchase lands, to sue and be sued, to make by-
laws, and to punish offenders against them by fine or
imprisonment. Admission was by purchase of a share in a voyage,
redemption, presentation, patrimony (sons of members who were
twenty-one), and apprenticeship.
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