Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/223

 CHARLES I ATTACKS THE COMPANY 177 Majesty's pleasure was known as to whether he might want it for gunpowder, or until payments had passed secretly to the court. As the royal distresses increased he acted more vigorously, and in 1640, the Company having no money to lend him, he forced it to sell him on credit £65,000 worth of pepper, which he promptly resold for cash at a loss of £6000. His Majesty's profit on the transaction was nevertheless a handsome one, as all that the Company received from him seems to have been £13,000, certain disputed exemptions from customs dues, and the privilege of taking timber from the Forest of Dean. So ingenious a device would not bear repetition. Charles, however, had already hit on a surer plan for making money out of the Indian trade. The charter of James I granted the monopoly to the Company for ever. But it contained a proviso for the resumption of the privilege, on three years' notice from the Crown, if the grant should not prove profitable to the realm. On this matter the king was the sole judge. He was surrounded by courtiers with their salaries in arrears, and by adventurers eager to show him a more excellent way, and to pay secret money for the permission to do so. How could he be sure that a Company, which constantly paraded its losses, was carrying on a trade profitable to the realm, unless he allowed others to try their hand? He had done many things for the Com- pany, encouraged its efforts to raise fresh capital, is- sued royal proclamations to help it against its servants' private trade, written letters to Eastern potentates,