ADVENTURERS, MERCHANTS. English companies for the con d uct an d extension of foreign commerce have been of two different kinds—(1) Regulated, and (2) Joint - stock companies. " When they do not trade upon a joint stock," says Adam SMITH (bk. v. ch. i.), " but are obliged to admit any person, properly qualified, upon paying a certain fine and agreeing to submit to the regulations of the company, each member trading upon his own stock and at his own risk, they are called regulated companies.
When they trade upon a joint stock, each member sharing in the common profit and loss in proportion to his share in the stock, they are called joint-stock companies." The oldest and most celebrated of the former class was the company of Merchants Adventurers. To understand its history, we must advert to the system of the STAPLE, established temp. Henry III. Certain places on the continent were fixed by royal authority as the sole marts for English wares, where goods were to be " collected, tried, and assessed." During the 13th and 14th centuries the five great exports of England were wool, woolfells, leather, tin, and lead, the first by far the most important. Bruges in Flanders was most commonly the seat of the Staple, but the English kings frequently transferred it to other continental towns, as, for example, to Bergen, Dort, and Calais, usually for political rather than commercial reasons. When the English cloth manufacture began to assume importance, the company of Merchants Adventurers came into existence, and from the first it was most closely, though not exclusively, associated with the export of cloth. Wheeler, secretary of the company, says of it (Treatise of Commerce, 1601) : " It consisteth of a great number of wealthy and well experimented merchants, dwelling in diverse great cities, maritime towns, and other parts of the realm, to wit, London, York, Norwich, Exeter, Ipswich, Newcastle, Hull, etc. These men, of old time, linked and bound themselves together in company for the exercise of merchandise and seafare, trading in cloth, kersie, and all other, as well English as foreign, commodities vendible abroad." The origin of the company is obscure, and the date of its incorporation cannot be determined with certainty. But privileges were granted to it in the 14th century by the Count of Flanders for trading in his dominions, and Edward III. fixed Bruges as the place to which its commodities should be carried. In 1407 Henry IV. gave its members the right of appointing their own governor. About the middle of the 15th century they came into conflict with the Merchants of the Staple. The
latter alleged that the Merchants Adventurers had no right to exact the regular contribution to their society from all persons exporting cloth to the Low Countries. The quarrel came to a head temp. Henry VII., who favoured the claims of the Merchants Adventurers, because they had given him valuable help during his diplomatic differences with Margaret of Burgundy arising out of the assistance she gave to Perkin Warbeck. They had prevented distress and discontent among the artisans by " taking up the commodities of the kingdom, though they lay dead upon their hands for want of vent" (Bacon, Hist. of Henry VII.) The amount which the company could exact for membership was limited by act of parliament, but its right to control the cloth trade to the Netherlands was recognised. It received, in 1501, a charter authorising its members to elect a president and twenty-four assessors, to make their own decrees for the management of the trade, and to punish transgressors. The Star Chamber, in 1505, decided that the merchants of either of the contending companies who wished to share in the trade of the other must pay the ordinary contribution. From this time the extension of English commerce was principally the work of the Merchants Adventurers. Henry VII, had obtained from the government of the Netherlands in 1496 a treaty known as the Intercursus MAGNUS, which secured mutual freedom of trade ; the merchants of both countries were allowed proper houses for residence and for the storing of their merchandise. The English traders were also permitted (1499) to sell their woollen cloths in other towns of the Netherlands besides Bruges and Antwerp. The further right to sell by retail was afterwards obtained by pressure exercised on the Archduke Philip, when driven by a storm on the coast of England in 1506 ; but this concession was strongly protested against by the Flemings, who called the agreement the Intercursus MALTS, and it was before long revoked. Antwerp had drawn away from Bruges the greater part of the English trade by offering special advantages, and though the return of the Merchants Adventurers to Bruges had been agitated from time to time, it now soon ceased to be thought of, and Antwerp became the great market for English cloth. About the same time (1516), the King of Portugal removed to Antwerp the staple for oriental wares, and the Portuguese merchants thenceforth purchased there the English cloth which they sold in the eastern countries and in Brazil.