| THE STATE IN THE MARYLAND ECONOMY, 1776-1807 237
gressive voting system,2z' and a limit on the amount of insur-
ance on any one ship. This company distributed a half-yearly
dividend. The Maryland Insurance Company possessed a cap-
ital of $500,000, a one vote-per-share voting system, but no
person could hold more than ten shares, and no stated limit
on the amount of its insurance. Its dividend was distributed
annually.2" The company could also lend money on " bot-
tomry "and " respondentia." zee
Perhaps the most interesting difference between the two
companies was the capital formation of each. Nominally the
capital of the Maryland Insurance Company was larger, but
only one-tenth ($50,000) of that company's was to be paid up.
The Baltimore Insurance Company's capital of $400,000 was
to be fully paid up by 1797: $20,000 of it was to be kept in
deposit to answer claims: the remaining $280,000 was to be
invested in stock of the Bank of the United States, of any Mary-
land bank, or of the public debt.zz7 No such fund was pro-
vided for in the charter of the Maryland Insurance Company.
About the only features held in common by the two com-
panies were the duration of their charters, nine years each,
and the fact that quite a few prominent Baltimoreans had pur-
chased stock in both companies.22a However, by successive
revisions of its charter, the Baltimore Insurance Company in-
creased and liberalized its powers almost to the extent of those
possessed by its rival. It was allowed to increase the number
of shares that one person might hold from ten to fifty, make
short-term loans from its surplus funds, and increase the
amounts and types of its marine insurances?29 No revisions
22' A system of voting stock, intended to lessen the power of large
stockhold-
ers where the number of votes diminishes in proportion to the number of
shares
held, acording to a predetermined scheme. Good examples of regressive stock
voting schemes of this period are to be found in the constitution of the
first
Hank of the United states and the charter of the Bank of Baltimore, Md.
Sess.,
1795 c. 27.
y" Ibid.' 1795 c. 59, 60.
"" Respondentia is a loan upon goods laden on a ship to be repaid, with in-
terest, only in the event of the safe arrival of some part of the goods. It
differs
from bottomry which is a loan with the ship as security.
x=7 The Maryland Historical Society has a MS " Account Book 1796-7 " of the
i3altimore Insurance Company, which shows it to have invested its surplus
capi-
tal in the stock of the U. S. Bank, the Bank of Maryland, and the Bank of
Bal-
timore.
Ea" Md. sess., 1795 c 59, 60.
2'° Ib(d., 1796 c. 63, 1798 c. 6, 1804 c. 37, 1807 c. 70.
|
