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 CHARACTER OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 237 COST. IHDtfCHE COMFA4HK IK so profoundly modified our national growth under Eliz- abeth. Yet it was in no sense a national enterprise, or a semi-national association like the Dutch East India Company. The queen allowed a private group of her subjects to ad- venture their capi- tal in the East India trade, and granted them such privileges as did not interfere with her own for- eign policy. When their interests clashed with her foreign pol- icy, she did not hesi- tate to withdraw her support, and the ad- venturers had to wait a year, after receiving her gra- cious assent, until the failure of the Spanish peace negotiations gave her once more a free hand. While, however, the company was not a national one, it drew its very existence from the royal preroga- tive. Not only did its monopoly as against all other English subjects, its partial exemption from customs, and its right to export bullion depend on a grant from the crown, but it had to invoke the aid of the crown HOUSE OF THE OLD EAST INDIA COMPANY.