suspect that she was really bound for the countries lying beyond the Cape of Good Hope.  She was stopped by the Admiralty, in obedience to an order which the Company obtained from the Privy Council, doubtless by the help of the Lord President.  Every day that she lay in the Thames caused a heavy expense to the owners.  The indignation in the City was great and general.  The Company maintained that from the legality of the monopoly the legality of the detention necessarily followed.  The public turned the argument round, and, being firmly convinced that the detention was illegal, drew the inference that the monopoly must be illegal too.  The dispute was at the height when the Parliament met.  Petitions on both sides were speedily laid on the table of the Commons; and it was resolved that these petitions should be taken into consideration by a Committee of the whole House.  The first question on which the conflicting parties tried their strength was the choice of a chairman.  The enemies of the Old Company proposed Papillon, once the closest ally and subsequently the keenest opponent of Child, and carried their point by a hundred and thirty-eight votes to a hundred and six.  The Committee proceeded to inquire by what authority the Redbridge had been stopped.  One of her owners, Gilbert Heathcote, a rich merchant and a stanch Whig, appeared at the bar as a witness.  He was asked whether he would venture to deny that the ship had really been fitted out for the Indian trade.  “It is no sin that I know of,” he answered, “to trade with India; and I shall trade with India till I am restrained by Act of Parliament.”  Papillon reported that in the opinion of the Committee, the detention of the Redbridge was illegal.  The question was then put, that the House would agree with the Committee.  The friends of the Old Company ventured on a second division, and were defeated by a hundred and seventy-one votes to a hundred and twenty-five.496

The blow was quickly followed up.  A few days later it was moved that all subjects of England had equal right to trade to the East Indies unless prohibited by Act of Parliament; and the supporters of the Old Company, sensible that they were in a minority, suffered the motion to pass without a division.497

This memorable vote settled the most important of the constitutional questions which had been left unsettled by the Bill of Rights.  It has ever since been held to be the sound doctrine that no power but that of the whole legislature can give to any person or to any society an exclusive privilege of trading to any part of the world.