The Writings of John Fiske (Volume 4) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1902. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... large share of the profits in case the venture should prove successful."1 Usually, however, such work was beyond the reach of private purses, and it was not until the middle of the The begin- sixteenth century, and in such comjTm-stock mercial countries as the Netherlands companies and England, with comparatively free governments, that joint-stock companies began to be formed for such purposes. I have already alluded to the famous Muscovy Company, first formed in the reign of Edward VI., and from that time forth the joint-stock principle went on rapidly gaining strength until its approach to maturity was announced by the creation of the English East India Company in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company in 1602. The latter was "the first great jointstock company whose shares were bought and sold from hand to hand,"2 and these events mark the beginning of a new era in European commerce. This substitution of voluntary cooperation among interested individuals for compulsory action under government control was one of the most important steps taken towards bringing in the modern era. Americans have no reason to regret that the beginnings of English 1 See my Discovery of America, vol. ii. chap. v. * Payne, European Colonies, p. 55. colonization in the New World were not made by an English sovereign. There can be no doubt that the very slight connection between these colonies and the crown was from the first extremely favourable to their free and untrammelled development. Far better that the worthy Hakluyt's essay should get tucked away in a pigeonhole than that it should have fired Elizabeth to such zeal for Virginia as Louis XIV. a century afterward showed for New France By 1589 Raleigh seems to have despaired of finding the queen disposed to act as a fairy...