events, they were soon engaged in as severe and uncompromising a policy as their predecessors. And the peculiar conditions upon which their rights rested rendered the new company exceptionally fortunate in the succeeding years. The protégées of Laud, the original soap-makers who had been struggling against the Westminster Company, were incorporated as a fully organized society with a monopoly of engaging in the industry and taking apprentices. The king had every reason to support the new company with even more vigor than the old. He proved his zeal by a fresh proclamation announcing the new company, reciting the terms of the agreement, and exhorting obedience. Everything that effort could accomplish was done by the Privy Council to prevent illicit manufacture. The London Company was spared from the revocation of monopolies in 1639, and in the next year the king prepared to authorize the company to sell at whatever prices they chose, and even suspended their obligations to him. But by this time the power had passed to Parliament, then sitting. 5 The London Company was as successful in obtaining recognition under the Long Parliament and the Protectorate, as under Charles. There was constant and even violent opposition, but the privileges were not recalled. How steadily and thoroughly they were protected, it would not be safe to say from the evidence at hand, but there is no doubt that the privileges were important enough to make the illicit producers insecure in their position. Several explanations may be given for the survival of this monopoly. In the first place, its character was moderately democratic, since theoretically its rights were granted not to a few intruders in the industry, but to the mass of actual workers who had exercised the trade originally in London, as also in Bristol and in York, for the company was operating in the two latter places by 1640. A second explanation discloses the possible operation of a weightier motive. The importance of the company may have been due to 1 Gardiner, viii, p. 284. Soc. Ant. Proc. Coll. December 28, 1637. * See C. R. xiv-xix, 1637–1640, indices, article "soap." See also S. P. D. September, December 31, 1639; May 13, June 17, September 23, October 14, 1640. See also Cal. S. P. D. indices, 1636-7 and 1637, art. “ Soapmakers, unauthorized." See Appendices Q. and R. S. P. D. November 1, 1640. S. P. D. March 30, 1640. the fact that it facilitated the collection of the excise. Soap was excised in 1643,' and there was also a tax upon the raw materials. The temptation to evade taxation was strong, for unexcised soap could be sold at a high profit. In 1650 the authorized soap-boilers complained of the "double excise," which, they said, tempted men to manufacture in "dark places," thus subjecting the company to an unfair competition "by reason of the visibility and fixity of their houses." Under these circumstances there must have been a strong public motive for concentrating the industry and supervising it, and the company would offer the obvious means to this end. Soon after the meeting of the Long Parliament the patents for soap were referred to the consideration of a committee." When the report was read, it appeared that it was only the defunct Westminster Company that was called in question. The House of Commons resolved against the invention of Palmer and Jones as a deceitful project, against the patents of incorporation and the indentures and covenants of the company, against the proclamations and decrees in support of that monopoly, against the Star Chamber and Privy Council proceedings, and against the projectors of the company and the referees, declaring that they should make reparation to the London soap-boilers and to the Commonwealth. The proceedings against the members of the Westminster Company dragged through many years, but the ordinance finally prepared against them was lost by committing.5 The London Company fared well in the courts. When the legislature failed to revoke the charter arbitrarily, the independent soap-boilers appealed to the law, invoking the Statute of Monopolies against the London Company, which "to their utter ruin" broke their houses, seized their materials and vessels, imprisoned them, and drove them into exile. But the company had a long purse and fought the case for fifteen years, and finally won it. The company resorted to all sorts of expedients to delay judgment, 1 Husband, Orders and Ordinances, 1642-46, London, 1646, p. 315. 2 Lilburne et al., The Soapmakers' Complaint for the Loss of their Trade, 1650. ("Proposals for a more juster, equaller, and righteous way" of raising Revenue.) King's Pamphlets, British Museum. 3 C. J. December 21, 1640. C. J. August 17, 1641, October 30, 1641. apparently fearing the result. Special verdicts, long pleas,1 writs of error, appeals, and injunctions were employed, and the Long Parliament itself was induced to lend its authority, through commissioners of inquiry, to delay proceedings. Finally, the case was decided in the Court of Exchequer in 1656. The report recites that the king, by patent, May 22, 1637, for preventing and reforming abuses in the trade of soap-making, and for the better government of that trade, constituted a society or body corporate of soap-makers to continue forever with power to search, and with exclusive right of apprenticing, paying £43,000 for the charter besides an impost upon soap. The question was "whether this was a good charter of incorporation or a monopoly within the statute of 21 Jac. I, c. 3." The judge's decision was as follows: "I know very well that common and vulgar judgments run high against all such patents and condemn them before they understand them, as being contrary to the liberty of the subject and the freedom of trade; but they that consider them better are not so hasty in their censures; for certainly upon a serious consideration, all such patents and by-laws as tend most to the well regulating and ordering of trades and the better management of them, so that the benefits of them may be derived to the greater part of the people, though with a prejudice to some particular persons, have always been allowed by the law, but patents which tend to the engrossing of trade, merchandise, and manufacture, though never so small value, into one or a few hands only, have always been held unreasonable and unwarrantable." ... "Wherefore he concluded that the grant was good." A further appeal was attempted, but was stopped by order of Parliament in the next year.* 3 The continuance of this monopoly shows that some even of the most questionable privileges might thrive as well under the Commonwealth as under the monarchy. This period was not a speculative one, so that there were few projects ventilated, and fewer patents issued. And though administration under the Common1 There was, for example, one of 336 folios. S. P. D. [August 23], 1653. John Hayes et al. London Company of Soap-makers) v. Edward Harding et al., by English Bill, pp. 53-56, in Hardres's Reports of Cases adjudged in the Court of Exchequer in the Years 1655-1660, London, 1693. C. J. June 26, 1657. wealth was not free from corruption, those highest in authority were honest and capable, as had not always been the case during the two preceding reigns. But while the abusive and scandalous monopolies were suppressed, some few others, for reasons of state policy or finance, were allowed to stand. Moreover, although the parliamentary leaders had sounder economic ideas than had the crown ministers, they still retained an attachment for many of the traditional restrictions upon industry. CHAPTER XII CONCLUSION THE period from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century was a time when social forces at home combined with the protestant diaspora abroad to produce a diversification and increase in mechanical pursuits unprecedented in England. There was great eagerness to renew old resources and to exploit new ones. The "projecting" spirit gave birth to some monstrous and artificial schemes, it is true, but the spirit itself was in consonance with the economic conditions. Capital was accumulating and seeking new avenues of investment, contributing, with the influx of capital from abroad, to reduce the rate of interest. The skilled labor of the protestant refugees, invited by the hospitable English government, was migrating from the regions of the then highest attainments in the arts. But this hundred years of economic transition did not bring to completion the national organization of trade and industry. Local interests were offering a vigorous resistance to the spread of the national economy, and the apparent uncertainty of the struggle enhances the interest of the period. Industrial progress was breaking down the old institutions; the arrangements which were supplanting them were as yet imperfectly organized and adjusted to their function. At such a time much depended upon the good judgment of those in authority. Government alone could give security to property, and free scope for private initiative. Security, the administration certainly gave to the full measure of its inadequate resources. Government, indeed, undertook too much rather than too little. The effort was made to build up, under royal patronage, a group of industries for which England was as yet unprepared. The drift toward diversified manufactures, and the atmosphere of speculation which the rapid accumulations of the middle classes had inspired, led to ambitions that were premature; and these ambitions the government supported. But while security for national economic |