6. Summary

The formation of a joint stock corporation to purchase most of the vessels of John Hamilton's Royal Mail Line was the first step in an extended process of expansion and merger. The limited liability of the corporation proved better suited to this than the personal liability with which Hamilton, Bethune and the rest of the older generation of proprietors had been burdened. By 1874 the seven directors and two senior managers were shouldering the responsibilities which before had been entirely those of the owner-manager. This 'managerial revolution' had in a practical way made possible the extension of the company's activities beyond the limits of the Royal Mail Line.

The Canadian Navigation Company was one of the first generation of limited liability shipping corporations on the inland waters of Canada. In the four years between the passage of its charta and its actual use about a dozen firms were incorporated by Parliament.(55) Of these only one other scheme was intended to operate on the lakes, the North Western Navigation Company of Capt. Thomas Dick and other members of the Toronto mercantile and political elite.(56) Most firms, like the Richelieu Company, were simply a limited liability incarnation of a previously existing joint stock association. While many of the existing interests on the upper St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes would be slow to convert that capital into a corporation, few of the new interests entering the lake trade would venture much on unlimited personal liability after Hamilton's lesson.

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Chapter 5 appeared in FreshWater.