THAT whereas the Wiſdom of the KING, and this preſent Parliament, has thought fit by two ſolemn ſeveral Acts, and Letters patent under the Great-Seal of this Kingdom, to eſtabliſh our COMPANY with ſuch Powers, Priviledges and Immunities, as were thought needful to encourage any ſuch new Undertaking in this Nation; And particularly to raiſe a Joynt-Stock in ſuch manner as we ſhould think fit. And for that End to enfranchiſe ſuch Forraigners as would become Partners with us, & to enter into Treaties of Commerce with any in Amity with His Majeſtie for that effect, &c. Thoſe of our Number who were then intruſted with the Management thereof did think it moſt Natural to make the firſt Offer of ſharing our ſaid Priviledges with our Countrey-Men, and other Neighbours in England, as living under the ſame Monarchy: And they not only readily embraced the Offer, but in nine Days time ſubſcribed 300000 lib. Serling, as the one half of the Capital-Stock then propoſed, & actually payed in the firſt-fourth Part thereof, part in Specie, part in Bank-Notes, and the reſt in Notes payable upon demand.
That both Houſes of the Parliament of England taking Umbrage at thoſe Proceedings, did not only joyntly Addreſs His Majeſty for fruſtrating the ends of the ſaid Act, but the Houſe of Commons did alſo appoint a Committee to Examine what Methods were taken for obtaining the ſaid Act of Parliament here, for eſtabliſhing our Company, who were the Subſcribers thereto, and who were the Promoters and Adviſers thereof, with power to ſend for Perſons, Papers and Records; purſuant to which, the ſaid Committee gave Orders to Summon not only the Engliſh Subſcribers, but even ſome Perſons then Reſiding in Scotland, as by the ſaid Addreſs, Votes of the Houſe of Commons, and Copy of the ſaid Summons may appear; By all which, together with ſome other meaſures then taken, our Friends in England were, to our great loſs, diſappointment, and retardment, forced to relinquiſh, &c.
That notwithſtanding of that diſcouragement, not only moſt of the Nobility, Gentry, Merchants, and whole Body of the Royal Burrows, have upon the Inducement, and Publick Faith of the ſaid Acts of Parliament, and Letters Patent, Contributed as Adventurers, in raiſing a far more conſiderable Joynt Stock, than any was ever before raiſed in this Kingdom for any Publick Undertaking, or Project of Trade whatſoever, (which makes it now of ſo much the more Univerſal a Concern to the Nation) but we have alſo had all the Promiſing Hopes of Forreign Aid, that our Hearts could wiſh, eſpecially at Hamburgh, where the Merchants of that City entred into Contract with our Deputees, to joyn at leaſt 200000 lib. Sterling with us, till, to our great Surpriſe and Loſs, the Engliſh Miniſters there, did, under Pretence of Special Warrant from His Majeſty, put a Stop thereto, by giving in a Memorial to the Senate of that City, Threatning both Senate and Inhabitants, with the King's outmoſt Diſpleaſure, if they ſhould Countenance, or Joyn with us in any Treaty of Trade, or Commerce, as by the annexed Copies thereof, in French and Engliſh, may appear, which Memorial, we humbly pray, may, for the better Information of Your Grace, and Right Honourable Eſtates, be alſo Read in Parliament.
2That after the ſaid Memorial was by the Senate tranſmitted to the Commercij or Body of Merchants of that City, they to aſſert their own Freedom, did adviſe and prevail upon our Deputees and Agents who were there for the time, to open Books in the ſaid Merchant's Hall, where for ſome Days they ſigned conſiderable Sums purſuant to their ſaid Contract, tho' under Condition to be void, if we ſhould not procure ſome Declaration from the King that might render them ſecure from the Threatnings and other Inſinuations contained in the ſaid Memorial: And to our great diſappointment, thus the Caſe ſtands in Suſpenſe between them and us to this Day.
That as the reaſonable (nay and unqueſtionable) Proſpect which we had of a powerfull Aſſiſtance from Hamburgh and ſeveral other Places (if not obſtructed as aforeſaid) induced us to propoſe a far greater Equipage at firſt than otherwiſe we would have done; So the rendring of thoſe Meaſures abortive, has not only weaken'd our Stock, leſſened our Credit, retarded our firſt Expedition, and diſheartned many of our Partners at Home, but even alſo ſhackled our Reſolutions and Power from proſecuting at Preſent ſeveral other Branches of Forreign and Domeſtick Trades and Improvements which we had in View, if we had not met with ſuch Obſtructions and Diſcouragements from Time to Time.
That tho' our Company is more immediatly and ſenſibly touched in many Reſpects by ſuch Proceedings, than any other; Yet we humbly conceiving alſo, that the Honour and Independency of the Nation, as well as the Authority and Credit of the Parliament is ſtruck at through our ſides; We could not as Countrey men, and in Duty to that Collective Power, which gave our Company firſt a Being, but inform His Grace His Majeſties High Commiſſioner, and Right Honourable the Estates of Parliament of the Premiſſes, to the End, that the Great Council of the Nation, now aſſembled (whom GOD Almighty Direct) may do therein as to them in their profound Wiſdom and Diſcretion, ſhall think fit.
That as to what thereof concerns our Company in particular, we ſhall humbly beg leave to Suggeſt further, that our Ships being now at Sea, on their intented Voyage, the former Treatment which our Company met with in England and elſe where, may give us too juſt grounds to ſuſpect, that if either through multiplicity of publick Affairs, or otherwiſe howſoever; Your Grace and Right Honourable Eſtates of Parliament, ſhould neglect the taking preſent Notice of ſuch Uſage, the Enemies of our Company would be thereby encouraged, either directly or indirectly to purſue their former deſigns of Ruining (if poſſible all our Meaſures.
May it therefore pleaſe your Grace, and the Right Honourable the Eſtates of Parliamenr, to take the Premiſſes into your most ſerious Conſideration, to vindicat our Company's Reputation Abroad, by ſupporting the Credit of the Acts of Parliament, and Letters patent, by which the ſame is eſtabliſhed, and wherein the Honour of the Nation is ſo much concerned, to take effectual Meaſures (as the ſaid Act provides) for repairing the great Loſs and Dammages, which we have already ſuſtained, through the unwarrantable Treatment above-mentioned, as well as for preventing the like for the future; and withal to continue to us the Priviledges and Exemptions mentioned in the ſaid Acts of Parliament, and Letters patent for ſome longer time, in conſideration of the time already elapſed without Execution, and our Stock lying dead without Improvement, by reaſon of the Obſtructions aforeſaid.
(EEBO-TCP ; phase 2, no. A80272)
Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 135571)
Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English Books, 1641-1700 ; 2528:5)
Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford.
EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO.
EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org).
The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source.
Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data.
Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so.
Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor.
The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines.
Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements).
Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site.
This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this EEBO-TCP Phase II text, in whole or in part.