[Sidenote: Court of Proprietors.]
[Sidenote: New qualification.]
The first object of the policy of this act was to improve the
constitution of the Court of Proprietors. In this case, as in almost all
the rest, the remedy was not applied directly to the disease. The
complaint was, that factions in the Court of Proprietors had shown, in
several instances, a disposition to support the servants of the Company
against the just coercion and legal prosecution of the Directors.
Instead of applying a corrective to the distemper, a change was proposed
in the constitution. By this reform, it was presumed that an interest
would arise in the General Court more independent in itself, and more
connected with the commercial prosperity of the Company. Under the new
constitution, no proprietor, not possessed of a thousand pounds capital
stock, was permitted to vote in the General Court: before the act, five
hundred pounds was a sufficient qualification for one vote; and no value
gave more. But as the lower classes were disabled, the power was
increased in the higher: proprietors of three thousand pounds were
allowed two votes; those of six thousand were entitled to three; ten
thousand pounds was made the qualification for four.
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