The real importance of the Company was decaying when it admitted any one as a member on payment of a fine of £5. The conveyance of raw silk from Persia through Russia remained their privilege until troubles broke out in Persia in 1746, which stopped the trade; they still carried on their trade with Archangel, but when the Baltic became a peaceful highway, this shorter route to Russia destroyed the Archangel trade. The Russia Company did not, it is true, acquire for the British Empire any accession of territory; but its services in exploring new routes, opening up new lines of trade, putting Great Britain into communication with foreign powers previously strangers, can hardly be exaggerated, while it fostered and encouraged and developed that spirit of enterprise, adventure, and restlessness which, since the seventeenth century, has covered half the globe with one people and one religion. A distinction must be drawn between “regulated companies” and Joint-Stock Companies. In the former, every man traded for himself, subject to the regulations of the Company, like a Guild. In the “Russia,” “Turkey,” and “Eastland” Companies no one but a member could carry on that kind of trade. In the Joint-Stock Companies shareholders need not be traders and could sell or transfer their shares. The Eastland Company was first chartered in 1579. It was privileged to enjoy the sole trade over all those parts of the Baltic shore which did not belong to the Russia Company. Now there had been carried on, from time immemorial, a trade with the Baltic ports by private adventurers who wanted no charter. Many of these, no doubt, took up their membership with the new Company, but there were some who would not, or could not. These traders, driven away from their own markets, made loud complaints, in reply to which a proclamation was issued ordering that no one outside the Company was to export to these parts the merchandise in which the Eastland Company traded; provided always that the importation of corn and grain was left free. The provision looks like a compromise, but when we ask how corn and grain were to be imported except in ships, and that, if these ships were English, they would hardly go out in ballast, one fails to see that the enemies of the Eastlanders got much by their proclamation. In 1672 the whole of Scandinavia was thrown open to all comers; and the entrance-fee to the Company was reduced to £2. The opinion of Sir Josiah Child probably settled the fate of the Company. He said that the Eastland Company had only enabled the Dutch to get ten times as much trade in the Baltic as was carried on by the English.