THE statement of premiums given on previous pages indicate that the finances of the company underwent many and severe fluctuations. Success early favored the projectors, and divisions of profits were promptly realized to the advantage of the stockholder personally, but to the detriment of the corporation. The dividends paid from July, 1793, to January, 1798, inclusive, amounted to $591,296.63; but in July following the balance of the com- pany's accounts was on the debtor side. In January, 1799, a dividend of twenty per cent. was made, viz.: $120,000, followed in the next semi-annual period by a heavy balance again on the debtor side. This condition of the company continued up to January, 1807, when a dividend of four per cent. was made, and the company by this time was owner of 3,770 of its own shares. Dividends continued with some degree of regularity to 1812, inclusive. Three years fol- lowed without any profits to divide. In July, 1816, the company owned 7,534 of its shares; by July, 1835, it became possessed of 13,959 shares, purchasing to save them from the market; and the assets, including these, amounted to $683,021.50. The highest assets prior to this were in January, 1809, Avhen they amounted to $722,699.03. In 1842 an equalization was had of their condition, by a reduc- tion of the capital, alluded to before, to five dollars a share, 76 A HISTORY OF THE and the assets were on 1 January, 1843, $385.060.92, including 13,459 shares. On 1 January, 1850, the assets had increased to $911,667.40, and the company only own- ing 12,000 shares. By 1 January, 1853, the assets were $964,681.49, the company having parted with all its shares formerly held by it, but the capital had been increased in 1851 to $500.000. On 1 January, 1858, the assets were $1,007,825.26. Ten years later the assets had reached $1,962,836.54, while dividends amounting to $900.000 had been paid in the same time. In 1874 the capital stock was doubled, and this in 1876 was in its turn doubled, making it now tw-o million dollars. The decade ending 1 January, 1878, showed rapid but substantial progress, the assets on that date being $6,408,696.58, the dividends paid during the same period (excepting 1873 when dividends were passed, due to the Boston losses of November, 1872) amounting to $1,170,000, while the surplus had increased from $237,753.36 to $2,362,532.34. In 1881 the happy con- summation of a joint increase of the capital and surplus was effected by increasing the stock to three million dollars, and apportioning the one hundred thousand new shares to the stockholders at the rate of twenty dollars per share, being double the par. On 1 January, 1885, the assets amounted to $9,079,481.40, showing an increase in seven- teen years of $7,116,644.66, from which when is deducted the new capital paid up $2,500,000, and the cash increase of $1,000,000 in the surplus, we find that in this period the gain from its business and investments alone amounted to the sum of $3,616,644.66.