However heavy you should find the rod of power, the world will not then hearken to your complaints of severity; you have already drawn upon you the censure of your fellow subjects, by the resolution of the 6th of May, with regard to your dividends, which they say were made, in defiance of the king's ministers. The previous question upon the affair of dismissing the prosecutions has not retrieved your credit among them. What will they not think, what will they not say, if you divide thus in violation of a recent act of parliament? They see the legislature has determined you shall not divide, because you have proved you cannot divide; will they not say now, that you have determined, in your turn, you will divide, because the legislature has said you shall not divide? I conjure you therefore, Gentlemen, use the utmost caution at the present crisis, call in the ablest assistance, whilst you are making a construction on these acts of parliament, nor presume too far to trust your own judgments. I am the more earnest in this recommendation, as I find you mistake the intention, and operation, of these acts, with respect to a Christmas dividend, as you do with respect to this you are now going to pay. I understand, it is your opinion, that in order to make a dividend of 5l. _per cent._ at Christmas next, a court may be called in September with the seven days notice, prescribed by the said act, cap. 49, and 5l. _per cent._ may be then declared, by a vote taken by ballot, to be payable at Christmas. I must remind you, that the vote for 12l. 1-half, passed on the 6th of May, stands unrepealed by you, or by parliament, and by clause C. you cannot make any declaration of a dividend, but at the distance of five months from the last declaration; which five months, from the 6th of May, will not be expired, till October, when you cannot hold the Michaelmas quarterly court, because your charter, in page 36, expressly says, it must be held in the month of September. You cannot therefore declare any dividend till the Christmas court, as by the said clause C. every declaration must be made at a quarterly court; nor can you even then declare a dividend of 5l. _per cent._ as the 29th by-law will stand in your way, which enacts, "that no alteration shall be made in the dividend, on the capital stock of this company, without first giving six months public notice;" and such notice cannot be given of the intended alteration of dividend, from 6l. 1-4th to 5l. _per cent._ You see, therefore, that no dividend can be declared at Christmas next but the 6l. 1-4th, and that may be confidently declared, without infringing any act of parliament, or any of your own by-laws.