Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/291

 THE CHARTER OF THE COMPANY 231 chase lands, to sue and be sued, and to have a common seal. It vested the management of the company in a governor and twenty-four committee-men, who were to be annually appointed in July, the first set being named in the charter, and including Thomas Smythe as governor and Kichard Staper, the two original foun- ders of the Levant Company who had most actively promoted the new East Indian enterprise. The charter secured, for fifteen years from Christ- mas, 1600, the exclusive privilege of the Indian trade, that is with all countries beyond the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan, except such terri- tories or ports as were in the actual possession of any Christian prince in amity with the queen (unless by his consent), to the body corporate, and to their sons not being under twenty-one years, their apprentices, fac- tors, and servants. It also empowered the Company to make by-laws, and to punish offenders against them by fine or imprisonment, as far as consistent with the laws of the realm. All the queen's subjects were prohibited from trading within the geographical limits assigned to the company, unless under its express license, on pain of forfeiting ship and cargo, imprison- ment, or other punishment. So far the charter provides for the creation and management of the company, its continued existence for fifteen years, its powers to hold property, its right to trade to any country of the Indian seas not in actual possession of a friendly Christian prince, its exclusive privilege to do so as against all other subjects of the