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In the High Street of Edinburgh, not many doors further up than the premises of the publishers of this Journal, there is a curious memorial of an old and now generally abolished economic grievance. It is a portrait of a certain Dr Patrick Anderson, a physician of the reign of Charles I. It is an old portrait, or rather the representative of an old portrait, since it has necessarily been repainted from time to time, the atmosphere of Scotland not being favourable to the preservation of works of art in the open air. It serves as the sign of an ancient shop, where for generation after generation has been sold the medicine known as Andersen's Pills. What renders the portrait and the establishment with which it is connected so interesting to our present purpose is, that there is still an existing patent for the making and selling of Andersen's Pills. In whose hands it may now be, we are not aware; but we know that, ten years ago, the right of succession to this patent was the subject of a keenly-contested litigation. The question of course was—who was entitled to hold it, as representative of the physician of the reign of Charles I.? The event is suggestive of the effects that would arise from extending patents and copyrights over a great series of years, or to perpetuity, as some have considered desirable. If we suppose the pills to be a very great blessing, is not every human being as well entitled, in justice and humanity, to have the benefit of them, as those who are fighting for the succession? What have they ever done to deserve a monopoly? If there were a perpetual copyright, who at the present day would be the representatives of Shakspeare or Milton; and what right would they have to reap great rewards from the riches with which the illustrious dead desired to endow all mankind? The inventors and authors themselves, it is true, deserve reward; and they obtain it in the shape of the limited monopoly. But the indefinite or very long continuance of this would only levy a tax to enrich those who have performed no service, and would fill the country with endless litigation. To return, however, to our special subject.

It may be a new thing to some of our readers, to hear of a patent more than two hundred years old. The cause of the anomaly is, that this exclusive privilege was granted before the present patent-law was extended to Scotland by the Union. Anderson called the pills Grana Angelica. He published an account of their astonishing virtues in a little Latin essay, which bears date 1635; and as it is believed that there are not more than three copies of this in existence, it is worth more than its weight in gold. He did not profess to be the inventor or discoverer of the medicine, but stated that he had found it in use at Venice.

Small as was thus the service for which Anderson and his posterity were endowed with a perpetual monopoly in these pills, it would have been well for the Stuart dynasty of kings if all monopolies granted by them had been as well deserved and as innocent. On the matter of monopolies, our ancestors had a hard struggle, and they acquitted themselves like men of sagacity and courage. The word monopoly is derived from the Greek. It means, sole-selling, and expresses itself at once. It is almost unnecessary at the present day to announce the law of political economy, that wherever a small number of individuals acquire the exclusive privilege of selling any commodity, or undertaking any particular kind of service, the public will be ill served. The price demanded will be high, and the commodity or the work will be bad in proportion. Thus much, indeed, of political economy our ancestors of the reign of King James knew. But it must be admitted, that they strangely confounded it with a totally different matter—with that forestalling of which we lately gave an account. The difference is, that in the one case there is the right to buy and sell as much of a commodity, or as little of it, as you please; and, in the other, the right to be the sole seller of the commodity. It is as great as the difference between freedom and slavery. No man can ever obtain a monopoly through money, unless it be by underselling all others; and that is a form in which it need not be grudged. However wide may be the field occupied by the forestaller, he cannot prevent others from competing with him, if he sell so dear that they can undersell him. The effect of an enforced monopoly is to drive competitors away, and give the monopolist the whole market on his own terms.

Many governments raise a revenue by granting monopolies. They levy a large sum from the individuals to whom they concede the privilege of selling or making certain articles. It need hardly be said, that it is a very costly revenue, causing much more loss to the people than the amount it brings to the public purse; but it is a tempting resource, as it costs no trouble, and does not at least immediately bring the government to issue with the country. Queen Elizabeth did not overlook the convenience of this source of revenue. In fact, she pushed the system of monopolies very far, and nearly endangered the stability of her power. But she was a very wise ruler, and always stopped short at the point of endurance. Hallam gives the following animated account of a parliamentary contest in 1601. When we reflect on the departed corn-laws, the allusion to bread is certainly curious.

'The grievance of monopolies had gone on continually increasing; scarce any article was exempt from these oppressive patents. When a list of them was read over in the House, a member exclaimed: "Is not bread among the number?" The House seemed amazed. "Nay," said he, "if no remedy is found for them, bread will be there before the next parliament." Every tongue seemed now unloosed, each as if emulously descanting on the injuries of the place he represented. It was vain for courtiers to withstand this torrent. Raleigh, no small gainer himself by some monopolies, after making what excuse he could, offered to give them up. Robert Cecil, the secretary, and Bacon, talked loudly of the prerogative, and endeavoured at least to persuade the House, that it would be fitter to proceed by petition to the queen than by a bill; but it was properly answered, that nothing had been gained by petitioning in the last parliament. After four days of eager debate, and more heat than had ever been witnessed, this ferment was suddenly appeased by one of those well-timed concessions by which skilful princes spare themselves the mortification of being overcome. Elizabeth sent down a message, that she would revoke all grants that should be found injurious by fair trial at law; and Cecil rendered the somewhat ambiguous generality of this expression more satisfactory by an assurance, that the existing patents should be repealed, and no more be granted.'

The speeches of the members are a very favourable specimen of the parliamentary oratory of Queen Elizabeth's reign, as may be seen from the following delivered by Mr Martin. He is no philosopher, it will be observed, in political economy, but speaks from the actual grievances witnessed by him. 'I speak for a town that grieves and pines—for a country that groaneth and languisheth under the burden of monstrous and unconscionable substitutes to the monopolitans [meaning sub-monopolists, who paid so much for enjoying the monopoly in a certain district] of starch, tin, fish, cloth, oil, vinegar, salt, and I know not what—nay, what not? The principal commodities both of my town and country are engrossed into the hands of those blood-suckers of the commonwealth. If a body, Mr Speaker, being let blood, be left still languishing without any remedy, how can the good estate of that body long remain? Such is the state of my town and country. The traffic is taken away. The inward and private commodities are taken away, and dare not be used without the licence of these monopolitans. If these blood-suckers be still let alone to suck up the best and principal commodities which the earth hath given us, what shall become of us from whom the fruits of our own soil and the commodities of our own labour—which, with the sweat of our brows, even up to the knees in mire and dirt, we have laboured for—shall be taken by warrant of supreme authority which the poor subjects dare not gainsay?' Another member, Sir Andrew Hobby, on the opposite side, started up, and said, 'that betwixt Michaelmas and St Andrews tide, where salt before the patent was wont to be sold for 16d. a bushel, it is now sold for 14d. or 15d. a bushel.'[4]

The Stuart monarchs were not, as the world too well knows, so wise as Queen Elizabeth. King James found the granting of monopolies a very convenient way of making a revenue. It saved him from coming in contact with a discontented parliament; and whatever heartburnings it might create, did not immediately affect his own royal comfort. Accordingly, he granted a number of monopolies both of necessaries and luxuries. This created a system of the grossest oppression; since the great monopolists not only made as much as they could at the expense of the people, but sold portions of their monopolies to grasping, rapacious underlings, who conveyed the grievance into every corner of the land. These people became a hated and oppressive class, like the farmers of the revenue in France. According to a well-known anecdote, Voltaire, when in a company, each member of which had to tell some tragic story, was called upon in his turn. He said: 'There was once a farmer-general—you know the rest!' The same might have been said of the monopolists in the time of King James. One of them, indeed, has become in a manner illustrious in literature, by standing for the character of Sir Giles Overreach in the play of A New Way to Pay Old Debts. His prototype was Sir Giles Mompesson, a person whose oppressions created so much indignation, that parliament at last resolved to impeach him. In the proceedings, it was stated that Sir Giles, for the purpose of effectually carrying out his patent of monopoly, held the power of imprisoning those who infringed it, without judicial authority or the privilege of trial; and that he thus had many persons in private prisons—a proceeding ever justly odious in England, and contrary to the spirit of the constitution.

One of Sir Giles's monopolies related to the licensing of inns and the selling of horse-provender. Strangely enough, however, that monopoly which created the chief indignation was for the preparation and sale of gold and silver lace. He 'sophisticated' it, as the parliamentary documents call it—that is, he used base metal instead of bullion. One could imagine such a monopoly existing without the people being greatly oppressed by it. But gold and silver lace was much used by the aristocracy, and it seems probable that the indignation of parliament was considerably excited by feelings of a somewhat personal character. It is well known, that the person who chiefly supported these monopolies, and had the largest share of advantage from them, was the infamous favourite, the Duke of Buckingham. Instead of standing by his accomplice, however, he no sooner saw the wrath of parliament seriously and dangerously roused, than he gave up the monopolist as a victim. King James, too, who had bullied and insulted all who complained, seeing that parliament was in a truly formidable humour, went sneaking there, and boasted of having done his best to apprehend Sir Giles. 'For I do assure you,' he said, 'in the heart of an honest man, and on the faith of a Christian king, which both ye and all the world know me to be, had these things been complained of to me before the parliament, I would have done the office of a just king, and out of parliament have punished them as severely, and peradventure more, than ye now intend to do. But now that they are discovered to me in parliament, I shall be as ready in this way as I should have been in the other. For, I confess, I am ashamed—these things proving so as they are generally reported to be—that it was not my good-fortune to be the only author of the reformation and punishment of them, by some ordinary course of justice.'

Parliament, however, wisely kept the matter in its own hands, and immediately passed one of the most remarkable laws in the statute-book. This was no other than the act of 1623, establishing our system of patents for inventions. The original and main object of this act, was to take from the crown the power of granting monopolies. An exception was introduced, which is supposed to be owing to the enlightened foresight of Bacon, authorising the crown to grant for a limited period monopolies to inventors.

This law did not extend to Scotland until the Union; and hence it is, that in the High Street we have at this day in existence a patent of the reign of Charles I.