BOOK I. European goods, and raised that of Indian; but these CHAP. IV. adventurers exhibited so little of the spirit and knowledge of commerce, as convinced the Company's agents that they would not prove formidable rivals.1 1674. As England and France were now united in alliance against the Dutch, the Company might have exulted in the prospect of humbling their oppressors, but the danger of a new set of competitors seems effectually to have repressed these triumphant emotions. In 1673, the island of St. Helena, which had several times changed its masters, being recaptured from the Dutch, was granted anew and confirmed to the Company by a royal charter.2 The funds which, in such unusual quantity, the Directors had been able to supply for the support of the trade in India, did not suffice to remove, it would appear that they hardly served to lighten, the pecuniary difficulties under which it laboured. To an order to provide a large investment, the President and Council at Surat, in 1673–74, replied, that the funds at their disposal were only 88,2287. and their debts 100,000l. besides interest on the same at 9 per cent.; and in November, 1674, they represented that the debt arose to no less a sum than 135,000l.; and that all returns must in a great measure be suspended till, by the application of the funds received from Europe, the Company's credit should be revived.3 Of the sort of views held out at this period to excite the favour of the nation towards the East India Company, a specimen has come down to us of considerable value. Sir Josiah Child, an eminent member of the body of Directors, in his celebrated Discourses on Trade, written in 1665, and published in 1667, represents the trade to India as the most beneficial branch of English commerce; and in proof of this opinion he asserts, that it employs from twenty-five to thirty sail of the most warlike mercantile ships of the kingdom, manned with mariners from 60 to 100 each; that it supplies the kingdom with saltpetre, which would otherwise cost the nation an immense sum to the Dutch; with pepper, indigo, calicoes, and drugs, to the value of 150,000l. or 180,0001. yearly, for which it would otherwise pay to the same people an exorbitant price; with materials for export to Turkey, France, Spain, Italy, 1 Bruce, ii. 302. 2 Ibid. 232, 334. 3 Ibid. 337,342, 366. and Guinea, to the amount of 200,000l. or 300,000l. yearly, countries with which, if the nation were deprived of these commodities, a profitable trade could not be carried on. These statements were probably made with an intention to deceive. The imports, exclusive of saltpetre, are asserted to exceed 400,000l. a year; though the stock which was annually sent to effect the purchases, and to defray the whole expense of factories and fortifications abroad, hardly amounted in any number of years preceding 1665, to 100,000l., often to much less; while the Company were habitually contracting debts, and labouring under the severest pecuniary difficulties. Thus early, in the history of this Company, is it found necessary to place reliance on their accounts and statements, only when something very different from the authority of their advocates is found to constitute the basis of our belief. It will be highly instructive to confront one exaggerated statement with another. About the same time with the discourses of Sir Josiah Child, appeared the celebrated work of De Witt on the state of Holland. Proceeding on the statement of Sir Walter Raleigh, who in the investigation of the 'Dutch fishery, made for the information of James I. in 1603, affirmed, that "the Hollanders fished on the coasts of Great Britain with no fewer than 3,000 ships, and 50,000 men; that they employed and sent to sea, to transport and sell the fish so taken, and to make returns thereof, 9,000 ships more, and 150,000 men; and that twenty busses do, one way or other, maintain 8,000 people," he adds, that from the time of Sir Walter Raleigh to the time at which he wrote, the traffic of Holland in all its branches could not have increased less than one third. Allowing this account to be exaggerated in the same proportion as that of the East India Director, which the nature of the circumstances, so much better known, renders rather improbable; it is yet evident, to what a remarkable degree the fisheries of the British coasts, to which the Dutch confined themselves, constituted a more important 1 The pecuniary difficulties were chiefly encountered in India, and might have explained the apparent disagreement between the value of the imports and the stock sent out to effect their purchase, the fact being that the stock sent out was inadequate to the purchase, and the investments were paid for by money taken up in India, the great profit made on their sale more than covering the interest of the debt.-W. BOOK I. CHAP. IV. 1674. BOOK I. commerce than the highly vaunted, but comparatively CHAP. IV. insignificant business of the East India Company. The English fishery, at the single station of Newfoundland, 1675-82. exceeded in value the trade to the East Indies. In the year 1676, no fewer than 102 ships, carrying twenty guns each, and eighteen boats, with five men to each boat, 9,180 men in all, were employed in that traffic; and the total value of the fish and oil was computed at 386,4007.2 The equipments, in 1674-75, were, five ships to Surat with 189,000l. in goods and bullion; five to Fort St. George with 202,000l.; and 2,500 tons of shipping to Bantam with 65,000l.: In 1675-76, to Surat, five ships and 96,500l.; to Fort St. George, five ships and 235,000l.; to Bantam, 2,450 tons of shipping and 58,000l.: In 1676-77, three ships to Surat, and three to Fort St. George, with 97,000. to the one, and 176,600l. to the other; and eight ships to Bantam, with no account of the stock. The whole adventure to India, in 1677-78, seems to have been seven ships and 352,000l.; of which a part, to the value of 10,000. or 12,000l., was to be forwarded from Fort St. George to Bantam: In 1678-79, eight ships and 393,950l.: In 1679-80, ten ships and 461,700l.: In 1680-81, eleven ships and 596,0007.: And, in 1681-82, seventeen ships, and 740,0007.3 The events affecting the East India Company were still common and unimportant. In 1674-75, a mutiny, occasioned by retrenchment, but not of any serious magnitude, was suppressed at Bombay. In trying and executing the ringleaders, the Company exercised the formidable powers of martial law. The trade of Bengal had grown to such importance, that, instead of a branch of the agency at Fort St. George, an agency was now constituted in Bengal itself. Directions were forwarded to make attempts for opening a trade with China; and tea, to the value of 100 dollars, was in 1676-77, ordered on the Company's account. Be 1 An anonymous author, whom Anderson in his History of Commerce quotes as an authority, says, in 1679, that the Dutch herring and cod fishery employed 8,000 vessels, and 200,000 sailors and fishers, whereby they annually gained five millions sterling; besides their Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland fisheries, and the multitude of trades and people employed by them at home. Macpherson's Annals, ii. 596. See in the same work, ii. 547, and 552, a summary of the statements of Child and De Witt. For ampler satisfaction the works themselves must be consulted. 2 Anderson's History of Commerce. Macpherson's Annals, ii. 579. 3 Bruce, ii. 356, 360, 361-375, 379-392, 393, 395-406, 409, 410-435, 438, 439-446, 451, 453-459, 465, 468. side the ordinary causes of depression which affected the Company at Bantam, a particular misfortune occurred in 1667. The principal persons belonging to the factory having gone up the river in their prows, a number of Javanese assassins, who had concealed themseves in the water, suddenly sprung upon them, and put them to death.1 In 1677-78, "the Court," says Mr. Bruce, "recommended temporising expedients to their servants, with the Mogul, with Sivajee, and with the petty Rajahs; but at the same time they gave to President Augier and his council discretionary powers, to employ armed vessels, to enforce the observation of treaties and grants:—in this way, the Court shifted from themselves the responsibility of commencing hostilities, that they might be able, in any questions which might arise between the King and the Company, to refer such hostilities to the errors of their servants."2 This cool provision of a subterfuge, at the expense of their servants, is a policy ascribed to the Company, in this instance, by one of the most unabashed of their eulogists. We shall see, as we advance, in what degree the precedent has been followed. The difficulties which now occurred in directing the operations of the various individuals employed in the business of the East India Company began to be serious. The Directors, from ignorance of the circumstances in which their servants were placed, often transmitted to them instructions which it would have been highly imprudent to execute. The functionaries abroad often took upon themselves, and had good reasons for their caution, to disregard the orders which they received. A door being thus opened for discretionary conduct, the instructions of the Directors were naturally as often disobeyed for the convenience of the actors abroad, as for the benefit of the 1 Bruce, ii. 367, 466, 396, 404. 2 Ibid, 406.-M. There is a clause in these instructions omitted, which it is but justice to the Directors to re-insert. They enjoined their servants" to endeavour by their conduct to impress the natives with an opinion of the probity of the English in all commercial dealings." With regard to the object of the Court in giving discretionary powers to the President and Council of Surat, to enforce the observation of treaties and grants, it is not very candid to limit it to leaving an opening by which they might escape responsibility. Their own distance from the scene of action rendered some such discretionary authority in their servants indispensable, as is admitted a few lines further on.-W. BOOK I. CHAP. IV. 1682. 1683. BOOK I. Company at home. The disregard of their authority, and CHAP. V. the violation of their commands, had been a frequent subject of uneasiness and indignation to the Directors. Nor was this all. From discordant pretensions to rank and advancement in the service, animosities arose among the agents abroad. Efforts were made by Directors for the cure of these troublesome, and even dangerous, diseases. Seniority was adopted as the principle of promotion; but nomination to the important office of a Member of Council at the Agencies, as well as Presidencies, was reserved to the Court of Directors.1 CHAPTER V. From the Project of forming a new and rival Company, till the Union of the two Companies by the Award of Godolphin, in the year 1711. THE Company were now again threatened by that com petition with their fellow-citizens, which they have always regarded as their greatest misfortune. From the renewal of their charter, shortly after the accession of Charles II., their monopoly had not been disturbed, except by a few feeble interlopers, whom they had not found it difficult to crush. In the year 1682-83, the design was disclosed of opening a subscription for a new joint-stock, and establishing a rival East India Company. The scheme was so much in unison with the sentiments of the nation, and assumed an aspect of so much importance, that it was taken into consideration by the King and Council. It had so much effect upon the views of the Company, though for the present the Council withheld their sanction, that, in Mr. Bruce's opinion,2 it introduced into their policy of 1682-83 a refinement, calculated and intended to impose upon the King and the public. It induced them to speak of the amount of their equipments, not, as usual, in terms of exact detail, but in those of vague and hyperbolical estimate. What we know of their adventure of that year is only the information they forwarded to their Indian 1 Bruce, ii. 355, 374, 459, 453. 2 Ibid. 275-M. Bruce's words are "a new practice, probably a refinement in policy" ii. 477.-W. |