PREFACE IN November, 1893, on the invitation of the late Sir Charles Mills, I delivered a lecture on South Africa at the Imperial Institute, and I included in that lecture a brief account of some of the early Chartered Companies. My friend Mr. J. H. Reddan, of the Foreign Office, kindly assisted me in preparing the lecture, and we decided that the result of our researches should also be used as materials for a systematic treatise on the subject. We found, however, that the manuscripts in the British Museum alone, without referring to the foreign libraries and private collections, were far too extensive to be dealt with by either of us, even had Mr. Reddan's services not been required in connection with the urgent question of the boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela. I was therefore glad to accept Professor Keane's offer to utilize as much of the |