Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/44

24 to the Company, but in 1611 the Globe cleared 218%, and in the following year the Globe, Thomas, and Hector turned over profits amounting to 340% upon the capital invested. Other successful voyages followed, so that in 1617 the stock of the Company reached a premium of 203%.

The East India Company had its troubles, to be sure, which were many and great, yet it increased in power, wealth, and strength, until at the close of the eighteenth century it had become possessed of a large portion of the continent of India, maintaining its own armies, forts, palaces, Courts of Directors, Boards of Council, Governors, and Typeans. Eventually, this Company became the ruler of more than one hundred million human beings, not naked savages, but civilized men and women, many of whose ancestors had been learned scholars and merchant princes long prior to the invasion of Britain by the Roman, Dane, and Saxon.

It is not, however, with the political affairs of this Company that I wish to deal, but rather with the ships and the men who navigated them. The princely emoluments known as "indulgences" in which the captains and officers of these ships participated, naturally attracted the attention of parents and guardians, so that younger sons, otherwise destined for a life of ill-requited repose in the church, the Army, or the Navy, found lucrative service with the East India Company. These perquisites, which were handed out by the Honorable Court of