Every mercantile design in that age was clogged by the spirit of monopoly. If a man proposed to set up a stage-coach, there must be no other stage-coaches but his upon the road. If a company designed to introduce the manufacture of glass, or soap, or any other article, they must have the exclusive right of making the article for a generation. The Royal Company, as it was called, began as usual by securing monopolies. ‘No others might import or export salt or fish for certain months of the year but only of that company.’ This ‘impoverished many families which traded that way,’ and ‘did occasion great grumbling among the people.’--_Law._ In 1677, the Royal Company passed an ordinance for strictly enforcing their exclusive right to fish around the Scottish shores, demanding that any other party fishing should take out a licence from them. They themselves being bound only to fish for the service of the country, and not to send any fish abroad, by this restriction, says Fountainhall, ‘many in Glasgow, Dunbar, &c., will be great losers, who, by the export of fish on their own private adventures, brought in above 400,000 merks yearly.’ ‘The remedy,’ he adds, ‘will be to enter into the said company; only, they _would be abler with £50 sterling alone to manage the said trade, than with £200 given in there_.’ We have here a curious complication of errors in political economy--private enterprise and fair competition checked, and foreign trade forbidden. One would think that the most ingenious contrivances of an enemy could scarcely have devised a state of things more harassingly detrimental to a country; and the wonder is that even selfishness should have been so blind as not to see that the free industry of all was calculated to give better results. [Sidenote: 1669.]