Here, as in the Merchant Guild, the inevitable aristocratic revolution took place, and the old democratic brotherhood became a strict monopoly. The oppression was so flagrant that a petition was presented to Parliament in 1497 against the exactions of the Merchant Adventurers, as the association was then called, by which it appeared that interlopers, trading to Holland and Flanders, were fined £40, whereas any subject might have become a freeman in earlier times for an old noble, or about 6s. 8d.; [Footnote: 12 Henry VII. ch. vi.] and the scandal was so great that the fine was fixed at 10 marks, or £6 l3s. 4d., by statute. During the stagnation of the Middle Ages few traces of such commercial enterprises are to be found, but with the sixteenth century Europe awoke to a new life and thrilled with a new energy. Trade shared in the impulse. In 1554 Philip and Mary incorporated the Russia Company in regular modern form; in 1581 the Turkey Company was organized; in 1600 the East India Company received its charter; and, to come directly to what is material, in 1629 Charles I. signed the patent of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England. Stripped of its verbiage, the provisions are simple. The stockholders, or “freemen,” as they were then called, were to meet once a quarter in a “General Court.” This General Court, or stockholders’ meeting, chose the officers, of which there were twenty, the governor, deputy governor, and eighteen assistants or directors, on the last Wednesday in each Easter Term. The assistants were intrusted with the business management, and were to meet once a month or oftener; while the General Court was empowered to admit freemen, and “to make laws and ordinances for the good and welfare of the said company, and for the government and ordering of the said lands and plantation, and the people inhabiting and to inhabit the same, as to them from time to time shall be thought meet,--so as such laws and ordinances be not contrary or repugnant to the laws and statutes of this our realm of England.” The criminal jurisdiction was limited to the “imposition of lawful fines, mulcts, imprisonment, or other lawful correction, according to the course of other corporations in this our realm of England.” The “course of corporations” referred to was well established. The Master and Wardens of the Guild of Drapers in London, for example, could make “such ... pains, punishments, and penalties, by corporal punishment, or fines and amercements,” ... “as shall seem ... necessary,” provided their statutes were reasonable and not contrary to the laws of the kingdom. [Footnote: Herbert’s _Livery Companies_, i. 489.] In like manner, boroughs such as Tiverton might “impose and assess punishments by imprisonments, etc., and reasonable fines upon offenders.” [Footnote: See _History of Tiverton_, App. 5.]