The company's charter also reserved for the State the right to acquire the Camden and Amboy road under certain conditions upon the payment of a reasonable compensation. In 1844, through Mr. Stockton's engineering, the constitution of New Jersey was so amended as to practically deprive the State of the power to acquire the company's property. During the first few years of the existence of the Camden and Amboy Transportation Company its business was managed in the interest of its owners, but soon a few of its leading stockholders managed to turn its enormous profits into their own pockets. The Stevens and Stockton families, together with two other directors of the Camden and Amboy Company, had come into possession of a line of steamers that plied on the Raritan, between New Brunswick and New York. The enterprise, in spite of its largely watered capital, had been made to pay dividends ranging from 30 to 40 per cent. Its owners saw an opportunity for a larger field of usefulness and larger dividends. In 1834 a majority of the board of directors of the Camden and Amboy Company proposed that the company rid itself of the responsibility connected with the transportation business and lease its railroad and canal. Mr. Stevens, as representative of the Camden and Amboy Company, then negotiated with Mr. Stevens, the representative of the Napoleon Steamer Company, and the negotiations soon resulted in an agreement between the two companies by which the latter leased the railroad and canal lines of the former and agreed to pay it a fixed toll of $7.64 per ton upon all freights carried by rail, and one-quarter of all its revenues derived from the canal. Soon afterward the Napoleon Company entered into a similar contract with the Camden Ferry Company and now had a complete monopoly of the transportation business between New York and Philadelphia. It at once commenced to develop a system of organized plunder. Instead of the maximum charter tariff of 8 cents per ton per mile, it charged 10, 12, and even 15 cents. The through rates charged were several times as high as those fixed by the charter. Canal rates were raised to such an extent as to make them prohibitory and to compel the public to ship by rail. It is difficult even to estimate the total annual profits of the directorial syndicate. Their accounts, if any were kept, were not accessible, and surmises can only be based upon such data as occasionally found their way to the public. In 1845 the share of the canal tolls paid to the company's stockholders was $359,000. The directors' share under the terms of their lease is thus found not to have been less than $1,077,000. Another item of $170,000, tolls collected for the transportation of 27,000 tons of freight, was so divided that the Camden Ferry Company, or its other self, the directorial syndicate, received $32,000 for one mile, while the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company received $63,000, or less than twice as much, for ninety-two miles.