[Footnote 81:

Ann.

Of the H.E.I. Co. I.128.]

[Footnote 82: Id. ib.]

In the commencement of its operations, the East India Company proceeded upon rather an anomalous plan for a great commercial company. Instead of an extensive joint stock for a consecutive series of operations, a new voluntary subscription was entered into among its members for each successive adventure. That of the first voyage was about L70,000. The second voyage was fitted out by a new subscription of L60,450. The third was L53,500. The fourth L33,000. The fifth was a branch or extension of the third, by the same subscribers, on an additional call or subscription of L13,700. The subscription for the sixth was L82,000. The seventh L71,581. The eighth L76,375. The ninth only L7,200.

In 1612, the trade began to be carried on upon a broader basis by a joint stock, when L429,000 was subscribed, which was apportioned to the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth voyages. In 1618, a new joint stock was formed by subscription, amounting to L1,600,000.[83]

[Footnote 83: Ann. of the H.E.I. Co. Vol. I. passim.]

In the year 1617, King James I. of England and VI. of Scotland, granted letters patent under the great seal of Scotland, dated at Kinnard, 24th May, 1617, to Sir James Cunningham of Glengarnock, appointing him, his heirs and assigns, to be governors, rulers, and directors of a Scottish East India Company, and authorizing him "to trade to and from the East Indies, and the countries or parts of Asia, Africa, and America, beyond the Cape of Bona Sperantia, to the straits of Magellan, and to the Levant Sea and territories under the government of the Great Turk, and to and from the countries of Greenland, and all other countries and islands in the north, north-west, and north-east seas, and other parts of America and Muscovy." Which patent, and all the rights and privileges annexed to it, was subsequently, for a valuable consideration, assigned by Sir James Cunningham to the London East India Company.[84]

[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.

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