2. _A right to acquire and possess lands, tenements, and property of every kind; and to dispose of the same, under a Common Seal._--This right was conferred by the Charter of the 10th of King William; but by Stat. 3 G. 2. c. 14. § 14. the Company's estates _in Great Britain_ were limited to the value of 10,000l. per annum. In virtue of this right, the East India Company were empowered to settle "_factories and plantations_," within the limits of their exclusive trade. The Charter of William, indeed, adds also "_forts_," with the power of "_ruling, ordering, and governing them_;" but that this privilege cannot attach upon their corporate and _permanent_ capacity, will presently be made to appear. Fortresses and fortifications cannot, from their nature and use, become absolute private property; being part of the public defences of the Empire, they are (to speak with Lord Hale) "_affected with a public interest_, and therefore _cease to be juris privati only_[11]." The building a fort is an act done, in its nature, by virtue of a sovereign authority, and is therefore the dereliction of the private right of property for a public and general purpose. In asserting for the Company a _private_ right to forts and fortifications, the Company's advocates have therefore fallen into an extreme error, from not discriminating between the rights which necessarily belong to their _delegated sovereignty_, and those which can alone be annexed to their _commercial corporation_. And this brings us to the consideration of § 2. The _alleged_ permanent rights of the Company, which require to be considered under _two_ descriptions, viz. rights _alleged for them_ at the expiration of their last exclusive Charter, and rights _alleged by them_ at the present moment, with a view to the renewal of their present Charter. _These_ are the rights, or more properly the pretensions, which have been pronounced by GRACCHUS, "absolutely unmaintainable, and incompatible with the freedom of British subjects;" and not their true legitimate rights, as the writer of a letter under the signature of PROBUS has chosen to assume. The rights _alleged for them_ were these:--