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Early Joint-Stock Companies 289
for each of which there was a separate subscription, except that one and
two, and three and five were inter-related. In that year a subscription
was made on the basis that there should be four voyages with the capital
adventured, this was called the First Joint-Stock. In 1617 a Second
the assets
Joint-Stock was formed, but it was found advisable to purchase
of the First, and similarly the Third bought the * remains '
of the Persian
Voyages, which had been sent out separately. In 1657 it was arranged
that the Fourth Joint-Stock and the United Joint-Stock should be wound
up, and gradually the system of a permanent capital was adopted.
The methods of finance were not always strictly business-like. The
Royal African Company, chartered in 1672, was involved by 1712 in
difficulties 'without precedent or parallel.' In 1702 dividends had been
paid out of capital to induce the shareholders to pay an assessment on their
stock, and by 1712 the price had fallen to 2j^ for jioo
stock. When
trade was depressed on account of the Dutch war, two dividends amounting
to 50 per cent, were declared by the East India Company because the
capital could not be employed, and also, and probably more important
though not stated by the committee, because they feared the crown might
compel them to make large loans if they were known to have large
resources.
The East India Company occasionally paid dividends in commodities,
such as pepper or calico, in its earlier
years. This was not appreciated by
those who were not merchants, and in it 1629 was declared 'in order
'
to give contentment to the gentry that the distribution should be made in
money.
Occasionally in the companies for plantation and for reclaiming the land
dividends were given in land. Such a dividend was promised to
every
adventurer of a ^12 IDS. share in the first Virginia Company, who did not
emigrate himself. The land division in Bermudas in 1617 gave 25 acres
per share (an interesting map is given shewing the principle of the division).
The shareholders in the company for draining the Great Level were
to receive 95,000 acres ; and the Irish society, financed by a rate levied on
the London Livery companies, divided a great part of Ulster amongst the
shareholders.
In some of the colonizing companies there were subordinate joint-stocks
founded for particular purposes. Such were the Magazine in the Virginia
Company for bringing the tobacco to market ; a joint-stock of j8oo for
transporting * 100 Maids to Virginia to be made Wives'; and ^1000 for
sending out shipwrights.
Money was occasionally raised by lottery, as by the Virginia Company
in 1612, the Royal Fishery Company in 1661, the Company of Mine
Adventurers in 1699. The last was managed by Sir Humphrey
Mackworth, one of the earliest company promoters. He, or his agents,
excelled in writing pamphlets, precursors of the modern prospectus, describ-
ing the prospects of the company in most glowing terms, * the most artistic
touch '
the
*
being plea that, from the superfluity of profits, the happy
shareholder should vote considerable sums for charitable purposes.' The
proceeds of 2000 shares, amounting to jio,ooo, were used by Mackworth
T