Early in the following year (28 Jan., 1650) the City presented a counter petition in defence of its rights and privileges in Southwark, and the whole matter was referred by parliament to the Committee for Corporations.(998) The inhabitants of Southwark having submitted their case to the committee, the City were called upon to make reply.(999) They, in effect, denied that the inconveniences mentioned by the petitioners were caused by their being under the City’s government. As to the alleged grievance of being subject to concurrent jurisdictions, that was nothing uncommon. Not that the City itself countenanced variety of jurisdiction over the borough. Far from it. In fact, the civic authorities had recently themselves applied to parliament for the removal of the "Court Marshall" (or Marshalsea) and the abolition of the "Marshall of the Upper Bench" from the borough. The answer concluded by assuring the Committee for Corporations that if any inconveniences arose in the borough from any defect in the City’s government the City would be pleased to receive the assistance of the inhabitants in asking the supreme authority of parliament to amend it. No defect, however, could justify the separation of the borough from the City. There was another objection. The incorporation of Southwark would not only be an invasion of the City’s rights, but would work injury to the several companies and fraternities of the city which for trade purposes had become incorporated. These exercised their power of government over, and received support from, their members who were not exclusively inhabitants of the city, but dwellers in the suburbs two or three miles away. A conference was proposed between the parties,(1000) but nothing appears to have come of it, and the matter was allowed to rest for another hundred years and more. (M514) (M515)