Company was extensive. Their first voyage consisted of four ships and one pinnace, having on board 28,7421. in bullion, and 6,8607. in goods, such as cloth, lead, tin, cutlery, and glass. Many other of their voyages were of smaller amount; thus, in 1612, when they united into a Joint Stock Company, they sent out only one ship, with 1,250l. in bullion and 650l. in goods. But their clear profits on their capital were immense; scarcely ever, it is stated, below 100 per cent.*

During the Civil Wars the Company shared in the decline of every other branch of trade and industry. But soon after the accession of Charles the Second they obtained a new Charter, which not only confirmed their ancient privileges but vested in them authority, through their agents in India, to make peace and war with any prince or people, not being Christians, and to seize within their limits, and send home as prisoners, any Englishmen. found without a licence. It may well be supposed that in the hands of any exclusive Company this last privilege was not likely to lie dormant. Thus, on one occasion, when one of their Governors had been urged to enforce the penalties against interlopers with the utmost rigour, and had replied, that unhappily the laws of England would not let him proceed so far as might be wished,— Sir Josiah Child, as Chairman of the Court of Directors, wrote back in anger, as follows: "We expect that our "orders are to be your rules, and not the laws of England, "which are a heap of nonsense, compiled by a few ignorant country gentlemen, who hardly know how to "make laws for the good of their own families, much less "for the regulating of Companies and foreign Com"merce." t

The period of the Revolution was not so favourable to the Company as that of the Restoration. A rival Company arose, professing for its object greater freedom of trade with the East Indies, and supported by a majority in the House of Commons. It is said that the competition of these two Companies with the private traders

* Mill's History, vol. i. p. 25. ed. 1826.

† Hamilton's New Account of India, vol. i. p. 232., as cited by Bruce and Mill.

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and with one another had well nigh ruined both.* Certain it is that appointments under the new Company were sought as eagerly as under the old. I have found, for example, in the diplomatic correspondence of that period, an account of an English gentleman at Madrid, "who is "resolved to return in hopes to be entertained to go as a "Writer to the East Indies in the service of the New Company."†

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An Union between these Companies, essential, as it seemed, to their expected profits, was delayed by their angry feelings till 1702. Even then, by the Indenture which passed the Great Seal, several points were left unsettled between them, and separate transactions were allowed to their agents in India for the stocks already sent out. Thus the ensuing years were fraught with continued jarrings and contentions. But in 1708 the Government having required from each Company a loan without.interest towards the expenses of the war, both heartily combined to avert, if they could, or at least to mitigate, the common danger. Their remaining differences were referred to the arbitration of the Lord Treasurer, Godolphin; and his award, which an Act of Parliament confirmed, placed the affairs of the two Companies on a firm and enduring basis. It was enacted, that the sum of 1,200,0007., without interest, should be advanced to the Government by the United Company, which, being added to a former loan of 2,000,000l. at eight per cent., made upon the whole 3,200,000l. with five per cent. interest, that they should be empowered to borrow, through their Court of Directors and upon their common seal, to the amount of 1,500,000l., — and that their privileges should be continued till three years notice after 1726, and till repayment of their capital. In 1712 they obtained a prolongation of their term till 1736; in 1730 till 1769; and in 1743 till 1783.‡

* Wealth of Nations, book v. ch. i.

† Hon. Alexander Stanhope to his son, Madrid, June 1. 1699. Anderson's History of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 257. 326. and 372. ed. 1764. In 1730 Sir Robert Walpole stipulated the abatement of the interest paid to them from five to four per cent., and their payment of 200,000l. towards the public service. In 1743 they agreed to advance another million at three per cent.

After the grant of the first Charter by Queen Elizabeth, and the growth of the Company's trade in India, their two main factories were fixed at Surat and Bantam. Surat was then the principal sea-port of the Mogul Empire, where the Mahometan pilgrims were wont to assemble for their voyages towards Mecca. Bantam, from its position in the island of Java, commanded the best part of the Spice trade. But at Surat the Company's servants were harassed by the hostility of the Portuguese, as at Bantam by the hostility of the Dutch. To such heights did these differences rise that in 1622 the English assisted the Persians in the recovery of Ormuz from the Portuguese, and that in 1623 the Dutch committed the outrage termed the "Massacre of Amboyna," putting to death, after a trial, and confession of guilt extorted by torture, Captain Towerson and nine other Englishmen, on a charge of conspiracy. In the final result, many years afterwards, the factories both at Bantam and Surat were relinquished by the Company. Other and newer settlements of theirs had, meanwhile, grown into importance.-In 1640 the English obtained permission from a Hindoo Prince in the Carnatic to purchase the ground adjoining the Portuguese settlement of St. Thomé, on which they proceeded to raise Fort St. George and the town of Madras. "At the Company's "first beginning to build a fort," thus writes the Agency, "there were only the French PADRE'S and "about six fishermen's houses!"* But in a very few years Madras had become a thriving town. About twenty years afterwards, on the marriage of Charles the Second to Catherine of Braganza, the town and island of Bombay were ceded to the King of England as a part of the Infanta's dowry. For some time the Portuguese Governor continued to evade the grant, alleging that the patent of His Majesty was not in accordance with the customs of Portugal; he was compelled to yield; but the possession being found on trial to cost more than it produced, it was given up by King Charles to the East India Company, and became one of their principal stations.

* See a note to Orme's Historical Fragments on the Mogul Empire, p. 230.

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Nor was Bengal neglected. Considering the beauty and richness of that province, a proverb was already current among the Europeans, that there are a hundred gates for entering and not one for leaving it.* The Dutch, the Portuguese, and the English had established their factories at or near the town of Hooghly on one of the branches also called Hooghly-of the Ganges. But during the reign of James the Second the imprudence of some of the Company's servants, and the seizure of a Mogul junk, had highly incensed the native Powers. The English found it necessary to leave Hooghly, and drop twenty-five miles down the river, to the village of Chuttanuttee. Some petty hostilities ensued, not only in Bengal but along the coasts of India; several small factories of the Company were taken and plundered, nor did they speed well in their endeavours either for defence or reprisal. It was about this period that their settlement at Surat was finally transferred to Bombay. So much irritated was Aurungzebe at the reports of these hostilities, that he issued orders for the total expulsion of the Company's servants from his dominions, but he was appeased by the humble apologies of the English traders, and the earnest intercession of the Hindoo, to whom this commerce was a source of profit. The English might even have resumed their factory at Hooghly, but preferred their new station at Chuttanuttee, and in 1698 obtained from the Mogul, on payment of an annual rent, a grant of the land on which it stood. Then, without delay, they began to construct for its defence a citadel, named Fort William, under whose shelter there grew by degrees from a mean village the great town of Calcutta, -the capital of modern India. Perhaps no other city, excepting its contemporary, Petersburg, has ever in a century and a half from its origin attained so high a pitch of splendour and importance.† A letter is now before me which I once received from a Governor General of India, accus

* Anecdotes Orientales, vol. ii. p. 342. ed. 1773.

It is remarkable how much these two cities resemble each other. Bishop Heber writes from Calcutta: "The whole is so like some parts of Petersburg that it is hardly possibly for me to fancy myself any where else." Journal, October 11. 1824.

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tomed to all the magnificence of European Courts, but describing with eloquent warmth his admiration and astonishment at the first view of Calcutta," the City of “Palaces,” as he declares it most truly termed.

At nearly the same period another station, — Tegnapatam, a town on the coast of Coromandel, to the south of Madras, was obtained by purchase. It was surnamed Fort St. David, was strengthened with walls and bulwarks, and was made subordinate to Madras for its government.

Thus then before the accession of the House of Hanover these three main stations,-Fort William, Fort St. George, and Bombay, had been erected into Presidencies, or central posts of Government; not, however, as at present, subject to one supreme authority, but each independent of the rest. Each was governed by a President and a Council of nine or twelve members, appointed by the Court of Directors in England. Each was surrounded with fortifications, and guarded by a small force, partly European and partly native, in the service of the Company. The Europeans were either recruits enlisted in England or strollers and deserters from other services in India. Among these the descendants of the old settlers, especially the Portuguese, were called Topasses,-from the TOPE or hat which they wore instead of turban. The natives, as yet ill-armed and ill-trained, were known by the name of Sepoys, - a corruption from the Indian word SIPAHI, a soldier. But the territory of the English scarcely extended out of sight of their towns, nor had their military preparations any other object than the unmolested enjoyment of their trade. Far from aiming at conquest and aggrandisement, they had often to tremble for their homes. So lately as 1742 the "Mahratta Ditch” was dug round a part of Calcutta, to protect the city from an inroad of the fierce race of Sivajee.

Even before the commencement of the eighteenth century it might be said that all rivalry had ceased in India between the Company's servants and the Dutch or Portuguese. The latter, besides their treaties of close alliance with England, had utterly declined from their ancient greatness and renown. The Dutch directed by far their principal attention to their possessions in Java