=235. Characteristics of the companies.=—In their organization and development these companies show such variety that it is impossible here to do more than indicate some common features of their history. They tended to one of the two types (joint-stock or regulated) which have been described, and sometimes wavered between the two. The monopoly which they enjoyed made them unpopular with the public, who thought that it was used to secure unduly high profits, and still more unpopular with private merchants who were prevented from sharing in the trade. These merchants who could not gain admission to the companies, because of lack of capital, or distance from London, formed a class of “interlopers” or smugglers trading inside the companies’ preserves. Toward the close of the seventeenth century the feeling against the companies grew so strong that reform was forced upon them; entrance fees were lowered or exclusive privileges were taken away and the trade was thrown open. Some of the companies continued to exist, however; the greatest of them all, the East India Company, kept its hold on the trade with Asia, and other companies continued as semi-public or private corporations after their chief privileges had been annulled. The Levant Company was not dissolved till 1825, and the Hudson’s Bay Company is still in existence, as an ordinary trading corporation. =236. Rapid growth of commerce in the eighteenth century.=—The period in which the companies were most active, roughly the seventeenth century, was preparatory to the period of individual enterprise which in the eighteenth century brought England to the leading position among the commercial states. The advance is shown by the following table, giving in _millions_ of pounds sterling (and a rough equivalent in dollars) the annual average of trade in the different periods: ====================+========================+=================== Average of | Imports | Exports --------------------+------------------------+------------------- 1698-1701 | £ 5.5 $ 27 | £ 6.4 $ 32 1749-1755 | 8.2 41 | 12.2 61 1784-1792 | 17.7 88 | 18.5 92 1802 | 31.4 157 | 41.4 207 ====================+========================+=================== The figures show that the foreign trade of England grew between five and six fold in the course of the century; that it advanced considerably in the first half, but moved with the speed of a revolution in the second.