Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/415

 Chap. VTIT.] CAPITAL (W THE UNITED COMPANY. 381

from tlie United Company, thus making the whole amount of the advance to a.d. ivns. government £3,2,. No interest was allowed on the latter loan ; but as the former had borne interest at eight per cent., the effect was to accumulate both capitjiiof

° ^ ^ the United

loans into one, bearing a connnon interest of five per cent. In return for Uie loan comitmy. thus exacted, certain new advantjiges were conferred. The portion of the original loan, which still belonged to the separate traders of the General Society, had been reduced to £7200, and it was now made optional to the United Company, on giving three years' notice of their intention after 29th September, 1711, to pay off this sum and incorporate it with their own stock, so as to put them in exclusive possession of the whole East India trade, and leave them without even the siuidow of a competitor. It was also enacted that the existence of the Company, instead of being terminable by three years' notice after 1711, on repayment of the loan, should he prolonged under the same conditions till 1 726 ; and power was given them to borrow £1,500,000, which they might either allow to remain as a bonded debt, or repay by means of calls on their share- liolders. In this way the amount of capital, which would othenvise have been absorbed by the additional loan, was more than replaced. Lord Go- dolphin's award was pronounced on the 29th September, 1708; and the arrangements consequent upon it being immediately completed, the amalga- mation was finally etlected. One Company only, bearing the name of " The United Company of Merchants of En^dand trading to the East Indies," nowNamooi

. ® . * . theUiiitt.l

existed ; and preparations were forthwith made for canying on the East cnixni}. India trade on a larger scale than it had previously attained. The circum- stances were propitious: the charter of the English Company on which the trade was in future to be conducted could no longer be called in question, as it had obtained the direct sanction of the legislature — the internal dissensions and animosities which at one time threatened to bring ruin on both companies had been suppressed — and the native governments, in consequence of the political changes which followed the death of Am-ungzebe, had beeomc less able to practise extortion and oppression.

GAROOKrH OF THE PERSIAN GULT.

I