Page:Prerogatives of the Crown.djvu/147

Ch. VIII.] Franchises. — Corporations. 1 2T that a corporation should be established, vested with powers or privileges which by the principles of the common law can- not be granted by the King's charter, then recourse must be had to the aid of an Act of Parliament ; as if it be intended to grant the power of imprisonment, as in the case of the Colr lege of Physicians ; or, to confer an exclusive right of trading, as in the case of the East India Company ; or when a court is erected with a power to proceed in a maimer different from the common law, which is the case of the Vice- Chancellor's Court in the two Universities (a). But it has been well ob- served (6), that most of those statutes which are usually cited as having created corporations, either confirm such as have been previously created by the King ; as in the case of the College of Physicians, which was erected by charter in the tenth year of Henry the 8th., and afterwards confirmed in Par- liament by an Act of the 14th and 15th of the same King(6) ; or they permit the King to erect a corporation in futuro^ with such and such powers, as in the case of the Bank of England {d and the Society of the British Fishery {e) ; so that the immediate creative act is usually performed by the. King alone, in virtue of his royal prerogative. Though, as before observed {f), the Crown may grant to any city the privilege of having Justices of their own within themselves; yet a charter granting jurisdiction to Borough Magistrates over a district not within the Borough, does not exclude the County Justices without express words. And though such charter contain words of reference to former charters, in which exclusive jurisdiction is given to the Borough Justices within the Borough, and add that they shall have jurisdiction within the new district in tarn amplis modo et forma, &c.; yet if there be in that latter charter a saving clause of the rights of the Crown, and of all other persons, the Borough Magistrates have only a concurrent jurisdiction with the County Justices {g). It is now s^ttlefi that the King may not only grant to a subject a power and licence to erect a particular specified (a) Vid. Cro. Car. 73, 87, 88. Jenk. (rf) 5 and 6 Wm. and M. c. 20. . 97, 117. (e) 23 Geo. 2. c. 4. <A) 1 Bla. Com. 473. (/) Ante, 120. 2 Stra. 1154. (c) 14 and 15 Hen. 8. c. 5. Vid. 8. (g) 3 T. R. 279, and 4 Ibid. 456. Co. 114. corporation