Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/289

 THE BEGINNING OF ACTIVE PREPAKATIONS 229 Such academic dissertations, however interesting to posterity, little affected the policy of the moment. In 1600 the Spanish negotiations came to nothing, and the English adventurers ceased writing minutes and began to buy ships. They had, as a body, remained in abey- ance from October, 1599, to September, 1600, yet the prompt action which followed their next general meet- ing shows that their leaders had not been idle. The discussions of the intervening months had opened a grander vista of Eastern enterprise alike to the nation and the crown. It was no longer a question of a voy- age or voyages, but of an armed and chartered monop- oly for the permanent Indian trade. Having at length received the queen's assent, the adventurers reassembled in Founders' Hall on Sep- tember 23, 1600, exactly a year after their first abortive start in 1599. They at once appointed a committee of seventeen, including Alderman Thomas Smythe and Mr. Richard Staper of Levant Company fame, to ar- range for the voyage. Next day the committee pro- ceeded to Deptford and bought the Susan of 240 tons for 1600; and within a week the Ascension of 260 and the Hector of 300 tons. A pinnace, the Guift of 130 tons, was afterwards purchased for 300 as a vic- tualler to accompany the fleet, and to be cast off at sea at the discretion of the commander. But the adven- turers wanted something more powerful than ordinary trading craft, and on October 7, 1600, after a good deal of haggling, they bought for 3700 the Mare Scurge, a warship of six hundred tons, from the Earl of Cum-