This system of company exploitation was particularly
popular with the monarchs of all these European countries.
It made no demands on the royal purse. If failure attended
the company's ventures the king bore no financial loss.
But if the company succeeded, if its profits were large
and its achievements great, the king might easily step
in and claim his share of it all as the price of royal
protection and patronage. In both England and Holland
the scheme worked out in that way. An English stock
company began and developed the work which finally placed
India in the possession of the British crown; a similar
Dutch organization in due course handed over Java as a
rich patrimony to the king of the Netherlands. France,
however, was not so fortunate. True enough, the Company
of One Hundred Associates made a brave start; its charter
gave great privileges, and placed on the company large
obligations; it seemed as though a new era in French
colonization had begun. 'Having in view the establishment
of a powerful military colony,' as this charter recites,
the king gave to the associates the entire territory
claimed by France in the western hemisphere, with power
to govern, create trade, grant lands, and bestow titles
of nobility. For its part the company was to send out
settlers, at least two hundred of them a year; it was to
provide them with free transportation, give them free
lands and initial subsistence; it was to support priests
and teachers--in fact, to do all things necessary for
the creation of that 'powerful military colony' which
His Majesty had in expectation.
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