Patents were begun to encourage the new merchant lords to develop local manufactures or to expand import and export trade. Patents were for a new manufacture or an improved older one and determined the wages of its trades. There was chartering of merchant companies and granting of exclusive rights to new industries as monopolies. Some monopolies or licenses were patents or copyrights. Others established trading companies for trade to certain foreign lands and supporting consular services. But there were two detrimental effects: monopoly was a severe burden to the middle and poorer classes, and the power of patent holder to arrest and imprison persons charged with infringing upon their rights was extended to any disliked person. There was sharing of stock of companies, usually by merchants of the same type of goods. There were many stockholders of the East India Company, chartered in 1600 to trade there. New incorporated companies were associations of employers and often included a number of trades, instead of the old guilds which were associations of actual workers. Town government was often controlled by a few merchant wholesalers. The entire trade of a town might be controlled by its drapers or by a company of the Merchant Adventurers. The charter of the latter as of 1564 allowed a common seal, perpetual existence, liberty to purchase lands, and liberty to exercise their government in any part of the nation. There were policies of insurance given by groups of people for losses of ships and their goods. There were monopolies on cloth, tin, starch, fish, oil, vinegar, and salt. New companies were incorporated for many trades, the ostensible reason being the supervision of the quality of the wares produced in that trade. (Shoemakers, haberdashers, saddlers, and curriers exercised close supervision over these wares.) They paid heavily for their patents or charters. There was no sharp line between craftsman and shopkeeper or between shopkeeper and wholesale merchant. In London, an enterprising citizen could pass freely from one occupation to another. Borrowing money for a new enterprise was common. Industrial suburbs grew up around London and some towns became known as specialists in certain industries. The building crafts in the towns often joined together into one company, e.g. wrights, carpenters, slaters, and sawyers, or joiners, turners, carvers, bricklayers, tilers, wallers, plasterers, and paviors. These companies included small contractors, independent masters, and journeymen. The master craftsman often was a tradesman as well, who supplied timber, bricks, or lime for the building being constructed. The company of painters was chartered with a provision prohibiting painting by persons not apprenticed for seven years.