Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/351

 CROMWELL'S ACHIEVEMENTS 291 itself from a feeble relic of the mediaeval trade-guild into the vigorous forerunner of the modern Joint Stock Company. A large and continuous capital, always capable of automatic increase, took the place of a suc- cessions of uncertain subscriptions, each of them in- tended to be dissolved at the end of a few years. While Cromwell thus renewed the East India Com- pany and placed it on its permanent basis at home, abroad he secured for England the recognition of her right to a free expansion in the East. The arrogant claims of the Catholic powers in Asia he blew from the cannon's mouth. Our great Protestant compeer had to learn that similarity in religion formed no ex- cuse for commercial wrong-doing. Cromwell's sea- rivalry with Holland hardened and set into a national tradition, which dominated the feeling of the English trading classes for thirty years; and in the end led to the overthrow of the Dutch supremacy in Asia and to the establishment of our own. The head which planned these great designs was set to shrivel on a pole. But if the grandson of Cromwell's secretary, Milton, died as parish clerk in Madras, both the grand- son and great-grandson of the Protector lived to be governors of Bengal.