This article analyses the public debates about the two corporate forms used in the seventeenth century to develop England's international commercial reach: the regulated and joint stock company. It examines pamphlets to assess the changing public postures of the two forms across the period, and challenges histories of seventeenth-century English overseas trade that argue the triumph of free trade over monopoly. The article instead suggests that the public debate about the two company forms contributed to the development of new corporate constitutions derived from both models and therefore recovers the neglected significance of the regulated company in this period.

中文翻译：

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受监管公司和股份公司之间的公共竞争以及 17 世纪公司章程的发展

本文分析了关于 17 世纪用于发展英国国际商业影响力的两种公司形式的公开辩论：受监管公司和股份公司。它检查了小册子，以评估这两种形式在整个时期内不断变化的公共姿态，并挑战了 17 世纪英国海外贸易的历史，这些历史认为自由贸易战胜了垄断。文章反而认为，关于这两种公司形式的公开辩论促进了源自两种模式的新公司章程的发展，因此恢复了受监管公司在这一时期被忽视的重要性。