protection. No very early documents remain; but an elaborate charter,
granted by Edward IV. in 1463, proves that the corporation had then had a
long legal existence. [Footnote: Hakluyt's _Voyages_, i. 230.] The
crown thereby confirmed one Obrey, the governor, in his office during
pleasure, with the wages theretofore enjoyed; existing laws were approved;
the governor and merchants were empowered to elect twelve Justicers, who
were to hold courts for all merchants and mariners in those parts; and the
company was authorized to regulate the trade and control the traders,
provided no laws were passed contrary to the intent of that charter.

Here, as in the Merchant Guild, the inevitable aristocratic revolution
took place, and the old democratic brotherhood became a strict monopoly.
The oppression was so flagrant that a petition was presented to Parliament
in 1497 against the exactions of the Merchant Adventurers, as the
association was then called, by which it appeared that interlopers,
trading to Holland and Flanders, were fined L40, whereas any subject might
have become a freeman in earlier times for an old noble, or about 6s. 8d.;
[Footnote: 12 Henry VII. ch. vi.] and the scandal was so great that the
fine was fixed at 10 marks, or L6 l3s. 4d., by statute. During the
stagnation of the Middle Ages few traces of such commercial enterprises
are to be found, but with the sixteenth century Europe awoke to a new life
and thrilled with a new energy. Trade shared in the impulse. In 1554
Philip and Mary incorporated the Russia Company in regular modern form; in
1581 the Turkey Company was organized; in 1600 the East India Company
received its charter; and, to come directly to what is material, in 1629
Charles I. signed the patent of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts
Bay in New England.

Stripped of its verbiage, the provisions are simple. The stockholders, or
"freemen," as they were then called, were to meet once a quarter in a