Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/308

 254 APPENDIX I to the Committee of Fortifications to take them. So the cannon had to be given up, and the next year the Company petitioned for payment or their return. The London Parliament was, in truth, in no mood to tolerate a king's faction within the liberties of the City. In 1643 it cashiered the Company's governor, sequestrated moneys due to Royalists at the India House, and forbade any dividends to be paid until the directors had had an interview with a committee of the Lords and Commons. Later in the year, the Parlia- mentary Government demanded a loan of £10,000, and the Company was glad to get off for half that sum. By 1644 the Royalist party in the Company was cowed, and the chief officers of its ships had taken the Solemn League and Covenant. This coercion cost the Company dear. It had lately opened houses in Italy to dispose of its Indian goods, almost unsalable amid the troubles at home, and in 1645 one of its Royalist members, Sir Peter Rychaut, revenged his sequestrations in England by seizing three hundred bags of its pepper in Venice. Its captains, when clear of the Thames, were sometimes difficult to control. Captain Mucknell of the ship John, for exam- ple, carried his ship into Bristol and delivered it to the king's general. He then sallied forth with three armed vessels to waylay other Indiamen, and the Company was advised to despatch two nimble pinnaces to scout among the Western Islands or Azores and warn its homeward-bound vessels of their danger. Amid this confusion, the Company still tried to