[Footnote 84:

Ann.

&C. I. 192. - Note.]

It is quite unnecessary to extend this introductory view of the rise of the India Company any farther, as our limits could not possibly admit any satisfactory deduction of its history, any farther than is contained in the following series of the Early Voyages, for which we are almost entirely indebted to the Collection of Purchas. By this first English East India Company, with a capital or joint stock of about 70,000l. at least for the first voyage, were laid the stable foundations of that immense superstructure of trade and dominion now held by the present company. Their first joint stock did not exceed the average of 325l. or 330l. for each individual of 216 members, whose names are recorded in the copy of the charter in Purchas his Pilgrims, already referred to. Yet one of these was disfranchised on the 6th July, 1661, not six months after the establishment of the company, probably for not paying up his subscription, as the charter grants power to disfranchise any one who does not bring in his promised adventure.

The East India Company of Holland, the elder sister of that of England, now a nonentity, though once the most extensive and most flourishing commercial establishment that ever existed, long ago published, or permitted to be published, a very extensive series of voyages of commerce and discovery, called Voyages which contributed to establish the East India Company of the United Netherlands. It were, perhaps, worthy of the Royal Merchants who constitute the English East India Company, now the unrivalled possessors of the entire trade and sovereignty of all India and its innumerable islands, to publish or patronize a similar monument of its early exertions, difficulties, and ultimate success.

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