IF the Present Charter and Company be dissolved, a way is paved for our Neighbours to render themselves Masters of all that Trade, and this irrecoverably, which will draw with it the Mastery of the Sea, and all our Safety: For though we may think to Fight for it, while we have Mariners enough; yet it is nothing but Trade which can breed up and retain those Mariners.

If this Company only be pull'd down and another set up, (which must be with equal or larger powers) the stop and nonplus the new Company will be plunged in for some years, will give such opportunities to our Neighbours to possess themselves of all that is worth their grasping, that the Error will be seen when it is too late.

If this be done, or (as the Phrase now in Vogue) the Doors set open for new Subscripti­ons, what reasonable Compensation can be made for the dead Stock, the Forts, Factories, Arms, Ammunition, Phirmaunds and Priviledges, acquired, improved, recovered, and maintained by a vast Expence? and with what Equity can this be done without it? whereas the daily practice of buying Stock at the Price Currant, is so easie to any who have a mind to come in fairly, so many dying, or selling off to lay out in Lands.

If finding the ruinous tendencies of these Courses, the Nation be content with reducing the greater Stocks to smaller Scantlings, it were as good to turn out Ability, Honesty and Application from the management of the Stock, those being the surest pledges which can be given for these, and then what reason that the present Owners of the greater Stocks, the most whereof have reaped yet no benefit thereby, should be obliged to sell off to loss? the least harm that can be done in this case, being not to look back, but only to set limits for the future.

But still the Conduct of our thriving Neighbours will be worth observing, who have ne­ver offered at such Restraints, nor ever unsettled their once Establish'd Company, and who as earnest Asserters as they have shewed themselves of Liberty in every Circumstance; in­stead of countenancing the insolent Intrusions of Interlopers, have from time to time enlarged their Charter and strengthned it with all the Authority which they could desire.

And this is it which hath enabled them to lay such deep and solid Foundations in those remote parts, not only for Traffick but for Empire, and which wait only for the once more disturbing of the English Company, wherein the extravagancy of our Interlopers, and others abusing the good meaning of many worthy Patriots in the High Court of Parlia­ment with their specious but shallow Insinuations and Slanders, does them as much service as if they had hired them to it.

If it be answered, that although the East-India Trade were lost some Ships and Seamen might abate but enough remain; let such consider our Trials with the Dutch, and the Naval Preparations of France; whose Projects in both Indies, should they succeed, would set them up to undertake us both.

To these Considerations, take in the want of Saltpetre, and the vast Expence of Gun-powder in the Modern Wars, at Sea especially, which irreparably ensues upon our loss of the East-India Trade.

And then is it fit the Company should be cried down as a Grievance, when it clearly ap­pears the Interlopers are the Aggressors, insolently contemning so many Warnings, by re­peated Proclamations in Vindication of a Charter deriving from the Blessed Queen Elizabeth, whose Memory was never taxed with Invasion on our Laws and Properties, and confirmed and reinforced by all succeeding Kings for almost 100 years, Whereas had this been found to be a Grievance, is it not strange, that so many succeeding Parliaments to which the Sub­jects might so freely have applyed for Redress, should never have taken it to Task? But that notwithstanding the mischeivous Consequences of former Interlopers, a few angry ones at present (who might as freely have come into the Stock by purchase as any others, nay all who are now concerned in it) should thus irreverently assume the Courage to bid Defiance to Government, and take upon them to carve for themselves.