On the Method of Plants

And a Reply made to the said Somers Islands Company’s Answer. To the King.

1. To the first Head Answered, That several years after the Company came into a joint Stock A joint-stock company is a precursor to the modern corporation, where capital is held collectively by shareholders., one Mr. Delbridge a Member of the said Company, did several years send Shipping there on his own account particularly, as appeareth by the Company’s own Records; and so he continued Trading, until Tobacco fell from Half a Crown per pound original: "per l." to one Penny per pound.
2. To the second Head, The Company hath made a confession (there needs no other proof) That they have made such a Law, that no Ship shall be sent to the Island, if any Member is owner of any part of her; which, as learned Counsel Legal advisors affirm, is contrary to Magna Charta The "Great Charter" of English liberties (1215), here invoked to argue against illegal monopolies and restrictions on trade..
3. To the third Head, The said Company have made a confession, that they have made such a Law, That no Ship shall be sent to the Islands to freight her, before their Magazine Ship A "Magazine Ship" was the official vessel sent by the Company to carry all the colony's exports and imports, enforcing a monopoly. is freighted; BUT the said Company hath ordered the Governor in the Bermudas original: "Burmudoes" to unload a Member’s Ship there, though she was loaded there by the Company’s own order, and leave obtained from the Government in the said Islands to load her; and they caused all the said goods they had taken out of her, to be put aboard their Magazine Ship, that did not arrive there until the next year after the time she should have been there, and forced the said Member’s Ship to return for England empty; and the said Company hath sent no Ship thither in above Two years’ time, and yet forbade a Member’s Ship to be Loaded there with Tobacco, of the growth of the Island, 1673. she did arrive in the Island, in the time of the late Dutch War, 1674; Witness, Cornelius White Secretary.
4. To the Fourth Head, The Assembly’s grievances Refers to the local representative body in Bermuda protesting against the Company's management. doth sufficiently disprove their assertion. — And surely Common Reason tells the World, That it is not therefore that their Laws must be good, because they affirm them so to be; and necessary, not only to the well-being, but to the very being of the Company: Behold their confidence!
5. To the Fifth Head, That oftentimes it is so, that their Magazine Ship is not big enough to bring away the Tobacco, as by several Witnesses can be proved; BUT were she never so big, Why should