GOO TIIE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

however, may, upon proper warning 1 , withdraw from the co-partnery, and demand payment from them of his share of thecommon stock. In a joint stock company, on the contrary,no member can demand payment of his share from the com-pany ; but each member can, without their consent, transferhis share to another person, and thereby introduce a newmember. The value of a share in a joint stock is always theprice which it will bring in the market; and this may beeither greater or less in any proportion, than the sum whichits owner stands credited for in the stock of the company.

Secondly, in a private copartnery, each partner is boundfor the debts contracted by the company to the whole extentof his fortune. In a joint stock company, on the contrary,each partner is bound only to the extent of his share.

The trade of a joint stock company is always managed bya court of directors. This court, indeed, is frequently sub-ject, in many respects, to the control of a general court ofproprietors. But the greater part of these proprietors seldompretend to understand any thing of the business of the com-pany ; and when the spirit of faction happens not to prevailamong them, give themselves no trouble about it, but receivecontentedly such half-yearly or yearly dividend, as the di-rectors think proper to make to them. This total exemptionfrom trouble and from risk, beyond a limited sum, encouragesmany people to become adventurers in joint stock companies,who would upon no accounthazard their fortunes in any privatecopartnery. Such companies, therefore, commonly draw tothemselves much greater stocks than any private copartnerycan boast of. The trading stock of the South Sea Company ,at one time, amounted to upwards of thirty-three millionseight hundred thousand pounds. The divided capital of theBank of England amounts, at present, to ten millions sevenhundred and eighty thousand pounds. The directors of suchcompanies, however, being the managers rather of otherpeople’s money than of their own, it cannot well be expected,that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigi-lance with which the partners in a private copartnery fre-quently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a richman, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as notfor their master’s honour, and very easily give themselves adispensation from having it. Negligence and profusion,therefore, must always prevail more or less, in the manage-ment of the affairs of such a company. It is upon this account