Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/53

Rh ries, cruelty, insolency, and cunning circumventing projects" of the Dutch in the East Indies, who made no scruple about sending fleets with large bodies of soldiers to seize or expel foreign merchants and to occupy stations whenever it was their interest to do so.

The English Company was also much troubled by the encroachments of interlopers, or private independent traders, some of whom were little better than pirates, but for whose misconduct in Asiatic waters the Company was often called to account by the local authorities. In default of any diplomatic or consular relations between Europe and Asia, a responsible trading association, holding regular grants and licenses from the Moghul or his governors, was naturally regarded as representing the nationality to which it belonged, and had to suffer reprisals or pay indemnities for the misdeeds of its compatriots. Still graver consequences might follow offence given by the independent English merchantmen to the Portuguese or the Dutch, who thought little of sinking an intruding vessel, deliberately drowning the whole crew, or levelling an obnoxious factory.

Only a company supported by the state, with an exclusive trading charter, could command the capital, exert the strength, and maintain the consistent organization that was indispensable in those days, when English commerce had to fight its own battle against enemies who would have entirely expelled it from the great markets of the East. In these essential qualifications for success the Dutch excelled all other nations