On the Method of Plants

BUT notwithstanding the abovesaid Petition was received by the said Company, and the former Petitions, and the Assembly’s Grievances, Printed as aforesaid; all of them craving from the said Company, to be relieved from the oppressing Laws and Orders made by them; YET instead of giving relief, they have of late ordered their Governor and Council in the Islands, to put all their Laws in execution forthwith without dispute; I William Righton A prominent Bermudian landowner and advocate for free trade who frequently traveled to London to challenge the Company's monopoly. one of the Petitioners, being at their Courts in London, an eye and ear Witness to the same.

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, 1676.

The Humble Petition of Perient Trott, and several other Merchants and Members of the Bermuda Company,

THAT at the Creation of the said Company, about the year 1614, they Traded on a joint Stock joint Stock: a precursor to the modern corporation where capital is pooled by members to fund voyages and trade, which was for divers years managed accordingly.

T H A T the said Stock hath been dissolved near Fifty years since; and your Petitioners have many years been Traders to the said Islands with their own private Stocks, since the dissolution or discontinuance of the said Company’s Stock.

T H A T some of the said Company, on purpose to destroy the Trade to those parts, have made a Law that no Ship should be employed to those Islands wherein any Member of the said Company hath any interest; and have lately sent out a Ship bound to the said Islands, which was so qualified, refusing to suffer your Petitioners (who are Members of the said Company) to send for their own Commodities of the growth of the said Islands, with their own Ship provided for that purpose, to their great damage and ruin of their Trade.