Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/339

 SUMMARY OF THE COMPANY'S EARLY HISTORY 281 Amid the troubles of the Civil War the system of separate series or groups of voyages broke down. But although money could not be raised for a series of voy- ages, there were, as we have seen, men both inside and outside the Company ready to stake a sufficient sum for a single voyage, if freed from the burden of the capital sunk in India. Such attempts to combine the original system of Separate Voyages with that of Joint Stock series of voyages led to a demand for the indi- vidual freedom of each member of the Company to trade on his own account— in short, for a reversion from the successive and distinct series of Joint Stocks back to the old Regulated system. The resistance of the governing body of the Company to this demand pro- duced the petitions and counter-petitions on which the Council of State had so long been unable to decide. Colonel Jones's report was presented to the Council of State on December 18, 1656. That body renewed its old hesitations, and the Company, in anger and despair, resolved on January 14, 1657, that unless a decision were received within a month, it would make sale of its factories, rights, and customs in India " to any natives of this commonwealth to and for their own proper use. ,, There was now no mention of its taking a share with the purchasers, and it evidently contem- plated a complete withdrawal from the trade. It or- dered bills of sale to be hung up in the London Ex- change. The Council of State* thus galvanized into action, summoned the Company and the rival merchant adventurers for a final hearing, and advised the Pro-