428 EARL Y EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS.

First December 1600, 1 the English East India Company was in-

^ist^De- corporated by Royal Charter, under the title of ‘ The Governor

cember and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East

1600. Indies.’ The original Company had only 125 shareholders,

and a capital of ,£70,000, which was raised to ,£400,000 in1612-13, when voyages were first undertaken on the joint-stock account.

Later Courten’s Association, known as ‘ The Assada Merchants,’

ponies fr° m a f actor y subsequently founded by it in Madagascar , was

1635, established in 1635, but, after a period of internecine rivalry,

1655, was united with the London Company in 1650. In 1654-55,

the ‘ Company of Merchant Adventurers ’ obtained a Charterfrom Cromwell to trade with India, but united with theoriginal Company two years later. A more formidable rivalsubsequently appeared in the English Company, or ‘ GeneralSociety trading to the East Indies,’ which was incorporated1698, under powerful patronage in 1698, with a capital of 2 millionssterling. According to Evelyn, in his Diary for March 5,1698, ‘the old East India Company lost their business againstthe new Company by ten votes in Parliament ; so many of theirfriends being absent, going to see a tiger baited by dogs.’However, a compromise was effected through the arbitration

1708. of Lord Godolphin 2 in 1708, by which the amalgamation ofAmalga- the ‘ London ’ and the ‘ English ’ Companies was finally carriedCompany, out I 7°9> under the style of ‘The United Company of

1709. Merchants of England trading to the East Indies.’ Aboutthe same time, the Company advanced loans to the English Government aggregating ,£3,200,000 at 5 per cent, interest, inreturn for the exclusive privilege to trade to all places betweenthe Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan. 3

English The early voyages of the Company from 1600 to 1612 arei6oo-?i e 2’ distinguished as the ‘ separate voyages,’ twelve in number.

The subscribers individually bore the expenses of each voyage,and reaped the whole profits. With the exception of thefourth, all these separate voyages were highly prosperous, theprofits hardly ever falling below 100 per cent. After 1612,the voyages were conducted on the joint-stock account.

The English were promptly opposed by the Portuguese.

1 Auber gives the date as the 30th December, Analysis of the Constitutionof the East India Cojnpany, by Peter Auber, Assistant-Secretary to theHonourable Court of Directors, p. ix. (London , 1826.)

2 Under the award of Lord Godolphin, by the Act of the 6th of Queen Anne , in 1708, cap. 17. Auber’s Analysis, p. xi.

3 Mill, Hist. Brit. Ind. vol. i. p. 151 (ed. 1840). Auber gives a de-tailed statement of these loans, from 1708 to 1793 ; Analysis, p. xi. etc.