Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/412

 HISTOUY OF INDIA.

[iiOOK J I.

A.D. 1700.

Tenns on which the cumpanies were amal- gamated.

a footing of equality, endeavoured to get rid ol' it altogether by making an offer to parliament to advance, at a reduced interest, as much money as would suffice to pay the whole of the £2,000,000 loan. Thi.s offer could not have been accepted without a gi-os.s breach of faith with the subscribers to that loan, and wa« there- fore justly rejected. It was now felt that the union ajuld only be effected on equitable terms; and as the necessity for it became daily more and more apparent, the deputies of the two companies, abandoning all attempts to overreach each other, began in good earnest to arrange an amalgamation. The result was embodied in a deed dated the 2d of July, 1 702, and entitled " Indenture Tri- partite between her majesty Queen Anne and the two East India Companies, for uniting the said Companies." The leading object of this deed was to place the companies in the very same position, by dividing the whole sum advanced to government into two equal portions, and assigning one portion to each. At the time of its execution, the subscription to the £2,000,000 loan stood as follows: —

English Company's subscription, ;£l, 662,000

London Company's subscription, ..... .315,000

Sejiarate traders' subscription, ..... 23,000

.£2,000,000

Leaving out of view the separate traders, who were so called because they preferred to trade, to the amount of their subscription, on their own individual responsibility, and not on a joint stock, the whole sum subscribed by the two companies was £1,977,000. The share allotted to each company, under the new arrangement, was the half of this sum, or £988,500; but as the London Company had subscribed only £315,000, it was necessary for them to make up the difference by purchasing stock at par from the English Company, to the amount of £673,500. This arranged, the next object was to fix the value of what was called the dead stock of the companies, or that portion of stock which, consisting of forts, factories, buildings, &c., coiild not be tiu-ned into money, but behoved to be reserved in common for the pm-pose of carrjdng on the trade. The whole of this dead stock was valued at £400,000, of which £330,000 belonged to the London, and only £70,000 to the English Company. It was therefore necessary, in order to maintain equality, that the latter Company should make up the difference by paying to the former £130,000. Dm-ing seven years, the companies were to maintain their separate existence, but the trade was to be carried on as an united trade, for the common benefit of both, and under the direction of twenty-four managers, twelve of them chosen by each company. At the end of the seven years the London was to be entirely merged in the Eng- lish Company, which should, "from thenceforth, for ever, continue the same corporation and body politick, with change of its name, and be from thenceforth called by the name of ' The United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies.' "