Anonymous

“ Yet I will suppose, for the present, you still think that the legislature had no such intention of retraining the present dividend of 10l. per cent. and inserted the 24th of June, instead of the 5th of July, imagining the dividend became payable on the former, instead of the latter of those days; would you, Gentlemen, in such a case, take upon yourselves to divide contrary to the express words of an act of parliament? And would you justify this disobedience to the law, by imputing a blunder to the only [Pg 29] body upon earth in which we can allow infallibility? ”

“ If you divide, you divide in defiance of the legislature, at the risque of your charter, and your own persons; if you call a general court, and, with the sanction of such a court, apply to parliament, by an humble petition, to have your Midsummer dividend restored; there will be no room to believe the legislature will not take off the refraction, if you prove yourselves in a condition to make the dividend you propose, as we may be confident they would be ready to rectify a mistake, in any act, whenever it should [Pg 43] be pointed out to them. ”

“ Perhaps there never was such a necessity, for an address to you upon the subject of caution, since the East-India company was established, as at present.—Your great successes in India, have drawn upon you the envy of your own countrymen, as well as the other European powers; the great increase of your dividend, has alarmed the proprietors of other funds for their own property; the differences among yourselves, and your [Pg 2] fellow-proprietors, have furnished this envy, and these fears, with the means perhaps of overturning your constitution. ”