8

As these two Companies are Simean and Levi in their Wickednesses over the rest of their fellow subjects, in the Excercise of their Dominion, so are their Pretences the same for their so doing, viz.
First, That these Trades cannot be managed but by a Joint Stock, to the excluding the rest of the English Nation, which is a Lye diametrically to their Practice ; for then Interlopers could not Trade in either, by seizing their Ships and Cargoes, and Imprisoning the Persons; and its Well they escape so. The Second is, That they are at great Charges in erecting Forts, for securing these Trades : If they have any such Forts, as the East Indy, the Fort of St. george, and another at Bombay, for which they pay Ten Pounds a Year to the Crown ; yet I fear the African Company have not the same Plea, now the French took from them their Fort this last Summer, at one of the Mouths of Gamba; but the Fort St. George, and that at Bombay are of no use in the Indian Trade, being quite out of the way ; and if they be of use to the Company, is this a Reason that no English but themselves shall Trade to near half the known World. The Zealanders have built a Fort, in the Scheld called Lillo, whereby they restrain all other nations, but the Dutch, from Trading to Flanders... Yet sure it would be a strange Impudence in the Zealanders, to forvid the rest of the Inhabitants of the United Netherlands to Trade to any part of the World, because they have erected a Fort in the Scheld called Lillo ; yet they may do this, as well as these companies forbid all the other English to Trade to Africk and the East Indies, because one Company has Fort St. George, and the other a Fort at one of the Mouths of Gambo. But there is a difference between the Zealanders and these Companies ; for they permit the other Dutch to Trade up the Scheld, and refrain Foreigners; whereas these Companies permit Foreigners to Trade in the East Indies and Africk, and only forbid the English, upon pretence of their Forts. And sure it is just with God, that these Companies which have thus Rent themselves from the rest of the Nation, and insult over their fellow Subjects, should themselves be subject to the Insults and Injuries of the French and Dutch, without any reasonable prospect pf relief from this Nation, so treated by them.