consuls and vice-consuls, whose business was to keep the Pacha
and the Cadi in good humour, and to arbitrate in disputes among
Englishmen. Why might not the same system be found to answer in
regions lying still further to the east? Why should not every
member of the New Company be at liberty to export European
commodities to the countries beyond the Cape, and to bring back
shawls, saltpetre and bohea to England, while the Company, in its
collective capacity, might treat with Asiatic potentates, or
exact reparation from them, and might be entrusted with powers
for the administration of justice and for the government of forts
and factories?

Montague tried to please all those whose support was necessary to
him; and this he could effect only by bringing forward a plan so
intricate that it cannot without some pains be understood. He
wanted two millions to extricate the State from its financial
embarrassments. That sum he proposed to raise by a loan at eight
per cent. The lenders might be either individuals or
corporations. But they were all, individuals and corporations, to
be united in a new corporation, which was to be called the
General Society. Every member of the General Society, whether
individual or corporation, might trade separately with India to
an extent not exceeding the amount which such member had advanced
to the government. But all the members or any of them might, if
they so thought fit, give up the privilege of trading separately,
and unite themselves under a royal Charter for the purpose of
trading in common. Thus the General Society was, by its original
constitution, a regulated company; but it was provided that
either the whole Society or any part of it might become a joint
stock company.