Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/822

798 798 INDIA [HISTORY. many petty ports on the Coromandel and Malabar coasts, remind the traveller of familiar scenes in the Netherlands. In the census of 1872 only seventy Dutchmen were enumerated throughout the whole of India. English The earliest English attempts to reach India were maritime mac i e by the North-West Passage. In 1496 Henry VII. granted letters patent to John Cabot and his three sons (of whom one was the better known Sebastian) to fit out two ships f &amp;gt;r the exploration of that route. They failed, but discovered the island of Newfoundland, and sailed along the coast of America from Labrador to Virginia. In 1553 the ill-fated Sir Hugh Willoughby attempted to force a passage along the north of Europe and Asia, the successful accomplishment of which has been reserved for a Swedish Biivant of our own generation. Sir Hugh perished miser ably, but his second in command, Chancellor, reached a harbour on the White Sea, now Archangel. Thence he penetrated by land to the court of the grand-duke of Moscow, and laid the foundation of &quot; the Russia Company for carrying on the overland trade between India, Persia, Bokhara, and Moscow.&quot; Many subsequent attempts were made at the North- West Passage from 157G to 1G16, which have left on our modern maps the imperishable names of Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, and Baffin. Meanwhile, in 1577, Sir Francis Drake had circumnavigated the globe, and on his way home had touched at Ternate, one of the Moluccas, the king of which island agreed to supply the English nation with all the cloves it produced. &quot;The first Englishman who actually visited India was Thomas Stephens, in 1579, unless there be any foundation in fact for the statement of William of Malniesbury, that in the year 883 Sighelmus of Sherborne, being sent by King Alfred to Rome with presents to the pope, proceeded from thence to the East Indies to visit the tomb of St Thomas at Mylapore (Mailapur, also called Saint Thome, a suburb of Madras), and brought back with him a quantity of jewels and spices. Stephens was educited at New College, Oxford, and was rector of the Jesuits College in Salsette. His letters to his father are said to have roused great Overland enthusiasm in England to trade directly with India. In expedi- 1533 three English merchants, Ralph Fitch, James New- berry, and Leedes, went out to India overland as mer cantile adventurers. The jealous Portuguese threw them into prison at Ormuz, and again at Goa. At length Newberry settled down as a shopkeeper at Goa, Leede; entered the service of the Great Mughal, and Fitch, after a lengthened peregrination in Ceylon, Bengal, Pegu, Siam Malacca, and other parts of the East Indies, returned to England.&quot; The defeat of the &quot;Invincible Armada&quot; in 1588, at which time the crowns of Spain and Portugal were united, gave a fresh stimulus to maritime enterprise in England and the successful voyage of Cornelius Houtman in 1596 showed the way round the Cape of Good Hope iat^ waters hitherto monopolized by the Portuguese East The foundation of the English East India Company was on th : s India wise : &quot; In 1599 the Dutch, who had now firmly established thei; Com- trade in the East, having raised the price of pepper against us f ron puiy. 3s. per ft to 6s. and 8s., the merchants of London held a meeting 01 the 22d September at Founders Hall, with the lord mayor in tin chair, and agreed to form an association for the purpose of tradin; directly with India. Queen Elizabeth also sent Sir John Mildenhal by Constantinople to the Great Mughal to apply for privileges fo: the English company, for which she was then preparing a charter and on the 31st December 1600 the English East India Company was incorporated by royal charter under the title of The Governo anil Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies. The original company had only one hundred and twenty-five slian holders, and a capital of 70,000, which was raised to 400,000 in 1612, when voyages were first undertaken on the joint-stock account Courten s association, known also as &quot; The Assada Merchants,&quot; fron a factory founded by them in Madagascar, was established in 1635 but, after a period of internecine rivalry, united with the London tions. Company in 1650. In 1655 the &quot;Company of Merchant Adven- urers&quot; obtained a charter from Cromwell to trade with India, but mited with the original company two years later. A nnre ormidable rival subsequently appeared in the English company, or General Society trading to the East Indies,&quot; which was incorpor ated under powerful patronage in 1698, with a capital of 2 millions sterling. According to Evelyn, in his Diary for March 5 1698, &quot;the old East India Company lost their business against the lew company by ten votes in parliament, so many of their friends jeing absent, going to see a tiger baited by clogs.&quot; However, a com- tromise was speedily effected through the arbitration of Lord jodolphin in 1702, and the London and the English companies vere finally amalgamated in 1709, under the style of &quot;The United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies.&quot; At the same time the Company advanced a loan to the state of 3,190,000 at 3 per cent, interest, in consideration of the exclusive irivilege to trade to all places between the Cape of Good Hope and he Straits of Magellan. The early voyages of the Company, from 1600 to 1612, are distin guished as the &quot;separate voyages,&quot; twelve in number. The sub scribers individually bore the expenses of each voyage, and reaped the whole pr fits. With the exception of the fourth, all these separate voyages were highly prosperous, the profits hardly ever falling below 100 per cent. After 1612 the voyages were conducted on the joint-stock account. The following chronological sketch of the progress of the Company in the East is quoted almost verbatim from Dr Birdwood s valuable report : &quot;The English were everywhere opposed from the first, as the I! Dutch had been, by the Portuguese ; but James Lancaster succeeded s in the first voyage (1602) in establishing commercial relations with n the king of Achin, and at Priaman in the island of Sumatra, and with the Moluccas, and at Bantam, where he settled a factory or House of Trade in 1603. In 1604 the Company undertook their second voyage, commanded by Sir Henry Middleton, who extended their trade to Banda and Amboyna. The success of these voyages was so great that it induced a number of private merchants to endeavour to obtain a participation in the trade ; and in 1606 James 1. granted a licence to Sir Edward Michelborne and others to trade to Cathay, China, Japan, Corea, and Cambaya. Michelborne, however, on arriving in the East, instead of exploring new sources of commerce as the East India Company were doing, followed the pernicious example of the Portuguese in plundering the native traders among the islands of the Indian Archipelago. He in this way secured a considerable booty, but brought great disgrace on the British name, and much hindered the Company s business at Bantam. In 1608 Captain D. Middleton, in command of the fifth voyage, was prevented by the Dutch from trading at Banda, but succeeded in obtaining a cargo at Pulo Way. In that year also Captain Hawkins in the third voyage, commanded by Captain Keeling, proceeded from Surat as envoy from James I. and the East India Company to the court of the Great Mughal. He was graciously received by the emperor (Jahangi r), and remained three years at Agra. In 1609 Captain Sharpey, who had conducted the fourth voyage, obtained the grant of free trade at Aden, and a cargo of pepper at Priaman. In that year also the Company constructed the dockyard at Deptford, which, was the beginning, observes Sir William Monson, of the increase of great ships in England. In 1611 Sir Henry Middleton, in command of the sixth voyage, arrived before Cambay, and resolutely fought the Portuguese, who tried to beat him off, and obtained some important concessions from the native powers. In 1610--11 also Captain Hippon, commanding the seventh voyage, succeeded in establishing agencies at Masuli- patam and in Siam, and at Patania or Patany on the Malay penin sula, and a factory at Pettipollee. &quot; In 1614 the Company s fleet, of the tenth voyage, under Captain Best, was attacked off Swalley, the port of Surat, at the mouth of the river Tapti, by an overwhelming force of Portuguese, who were utterly defeated in four successive engagements, to the great astonishment of the natives, who had hitherto considered them to be invincible. The first fruit of that decisive victory was theSr settlement of a factory at Surat, with subordinate agencies at Gogra, fa Ahmadabad, and Cambay. Trade was also opened with the Persian Gulf. In 1614 a7i ngency was established by Mr Edwards of the Surat factory at Ajmir. In 1615 Sir Thomas Roe was sent out by James I. as ambassador to the court of Jahangi r, and succeeded in placing the Company s trade in the Mughal dominions on a more favourable footing. The factory at Surat was the chief seat of the Company s government in western India until the presidency was transferred to Bombay in 1685. In 1618 the English established a factory at Mocha, while the Dutch compelled them to resign all pre tensions to the Spice Islands. In that year also the Company failed in its attempt to open a trade with Dabul, Baticola, and Calicut, through a want of sincerity on the part of the zamorin. In 1619 it was permitted to settle a factory and build a fort at Jask, in the Persian Gulf. &quot; In 1619 also the Treaty of Defence with the Dutch, to prevent