Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/331

 THE COMPANY AND PRIVATE TRADE 273 of the nationalizing of England's Eastern trade sent a thrill of apprehension through Holland. Meanwhile the expansive forces within the Company burst forth beyond control. In the autumn of 1654 the section of its freemen in favour of private enterprise had petitioned the Council of State that the East India trade be still carried on by a company, but with liberty for the members individually to trade with their own DACCA, NEAB CALCUTTA, IN BENGAL. capital and ships in such way as they might deem most to their advantage. The Company urged in reply that the experience of forty years proved that the India trade could be conducted only by an association strongly bound together by a series of Joint Stocks, and that the plan of Separate Voyages had been given up after a full trial; that the Company had now factories beneath fourteen native sovereigns, together with a costly equip- ment necessary for the protection of so distant a trade; and that, under its engagements with the Indian pow-