СНАР. 3. 1654. government, that unless the license to Courten were BOOK I. withdrawn, the ruin of the East India Company was sure. With regard to mercantile competition, at any rate, the skill and vigilance of individuals transacting for their own interest was sure to be a more powerful instrument than the imbecility and negligence of joint-stock management: and as to warlike competition, a few ships of war, with a few companies of marines, employed by the government, would have yielded far more security than all the efforts which a feeble joint-stock could make. The failure of Courten's Association was sufficiently accounted for by the operation of particular causes, altogether distinct from the general circumstances of the trade; the situation, in fact, in which the jealousy and influence of the Company had placed them. Factories were by no means so necessary as the Company ignorantly supposed, and interestedly strove to make others believe; as they shortly after found to their cost, when they were glad to reduce the greater number of those which they had established. Where factories were really useful, it would be for the interest of all the traders to support them. And all would join in an object of common utility in India, as they joined in every other quarter of the globe. As to the native princes, there was no such difficulty as the Company pretended: nor would individual merchants have been less successful than the directors of a joint-stock, in finding the means of prosecuting the trade. These contending pretensions were referred to a committee of the Council of State; and they, without coming to a decision, remitted the subject to the CHAP. 3. BOOK I. Protector and Council, as too difficult and important for the judgment of any inferior tribunal.1 1655. Nothing could exceed the confusion which, from the clashing interests of the owners of the separate stocks, now raged in the Company's affairs. There were no less than three parties who set up claims to the Island of Polaroon, and to the compensation money which had been obtained from the Dutch; the respective proprietors of the third, fourth, and united joint-stocks. The proprietors of the third joint-stock claimed the whole, as the fourth jointstock and the united stock were not in existence at the time when the debt obtained from the Dutch was incurred; and they prayed that the money might be lodged in safe and responsible hands, till government should determine the question. The owners of the two other stocks demanded that the money should be divided into three equal shares, for the three several stocks, and that they should all have equal rights to the Island of Polaroon. Five arbitrators, to whom the dispute was referred, were chosen by the Council of State. In the mean time Cromwell proposed to borrow the 85,000l. which had been paid by the Dutch, and which could not be employed till adjudged to whom it belonged. The Directors, however, had expected the fingering of the money, and they advanced reasons why it should be immediately placed in their hands. The pecuniary distresses of the Company were great; The different stocks were 50,000l. in debt; and many of the proprietors were in difficult circum 1 Bruce, i. 503. СНАР. 3. 1655. stances: From gratitude to the protector, however, BOOK I. they would make exertions to spare him 50,000l. to be repaid in eighteen months by instalments, provided the remaining 35,000l. were immediately assigned them, to pay their most pressing debts, and make a dividend to the Proprietors.' It thus appears, that these Directors wanted to forestall the decision of the question; and to distribute the money at their own pleasure, before it was known to whom it belonged. At the same time, it is matter of curious uncertainty, who these Directors were, whom they represented, by what set or sets of Proprietors they were chosen, or to whom they were responsible. 2 While this dispute was yet undecided, the Merchant Adventurers, or Proprietors of the united stock, obtained a commission from the Protector to fit out four ships for the Indian trade, under the management of a committee. We are made acquainted upon this occasion with a very interesting fact. The news of this event being carried to Holland, it was interpreted, and understood, by the Dutch, as being an abolition of the exclusive charter, and the adoption of the new measure of a free and open trade. The interests of the Dutch Company made them see, in this supposed revolution, consequences very different from those which the interests of the English Directors made them behold or pretend that they beheld in it. Instead of rejoicing at the loss of a joint-stock in England, as they ought to have done, if by joint-stock alone the trade of their rivals could be successfully carried 1 Bruce, i. 503, 504. 2 Ib. i. 508. on; they were filled with dismay at the prospect of freedom, as likely to produce a trade with which competition on their part would be vain.' Meanwhile the Company, as well as the Merchant Adventurers, were employed in the equipment of a fleet. The petition of the Company to the Protector for leave to export bullion, specified the sum of 15,000l. and the fleet consisted of three ships. They continued to press the government for a decision in favour of their exclusive privileges; and in a petition which they presented in October, 1656, affirmed, that the great number of ships sent by individuals under licenses, had raised the price of India goods from 40 to 50 per cent. and reduced that of English commodities in the same proportion. The Council resolved at last to come to a decision. After some inquiry, they gave it as their advice to the Protector to continue the exclusive trade and the joint-stock; and a committee of the Council was in consequence appointed, to consider the terms of a charter.2 While the want of funds almost annihilated the operations of the Company's agents in every part of India; and while they complained that the competition of the ships of the Merchant Adventurers rendered it, as usual, impracticable for them to trade 1 Thurloe's State Papers, iii. 80. Anderson says, "The merchants of Amsterdam having heard that the Lord Protector would dissolve the East India Company at London, and declare the navigation and commerce to the Indies to be free and open, were greatly alarmed, considering such a measure as ruinous to their own East India Company." Anderson's History of Commerce, in Macpherson's Annals, ii. 459. See Bruce, i. 518. Bruce, i. 514-516. СНАР. 4. with a profit in the markets of India, the Dutch BOOK I. pursued their advantages against the Portuguese. They had acquired possession of the island of Ceylon, 1658. and in the year 1656-57, blockaded the port of Goa, after which they meditated an attack upon the small island of Diu, which commanded the entrance into the harbour of Swally. From the success of these enterprises they expected a complete command of the navigation on that side of India, and the power of imposing on the English trade duties under which it would be unable to stand.1 CHAPTER IV. From the Coalition between the Company and the Merchant Adventurers, till the Project for a new and a rival East India Company. AFTER the decision of the Council of State in favour of the joint-stock scheme of trading to India, the Company and the Merchant Adventurers effected a coalition. On the strength of this union a new subscription, in 1657-58, was opened, and filled up to the amount of 786,0007. Whether the expected charter had been actually received is not ascertained.3 3 Bruce, upon whose authority this transaction is described, states the matter rather differently; he says: "That the charter was granted in this season will appear, from the reference made to it in the petition of the East-India Company, though no copy of it can be discovered among the records of the state or of the Company."-loc. cit. In a letter from Fort |