The Commodities Received From Thence Are Chiefly Raw Silk, Grogram
Yarn, Dyeing Stuffs Of Sundry Kinds, Drugs, Soap; Leather, Cotton,
And Some Fruit, Oil, &C.
The East India Company were incorporated about the 42nd of
Elizabeth, anno 1600, and empowered to trade to all countries to the
eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, exclusive of all others.
About the middle of King William's reign it was generally said their
patent was illegal, and that the Crown could not restrain the
English merchants from trading to any country they were disposed to
deal with; and application being made to Parliament for leave to lay
the trade open, the ministry took the hint, and procured an Act of
Parliament (9 and 10 William III., cap. 44) empowering every subject
of England to trade to India who should raise a sum of money for the
supply of the Government in proportion to the sum he should advance,
and each subscriber was to have an annuity after the rate of 8 per
cent. per annum, to commence from Michaelmas, 1698. And his Majesty
was empowered to incorporate the subscribers, as he afterwards did,
and they were usually called the New East India Company, the old
company being allowed a certain time to withdraw their effects. But
the old company being masters of all the towns and forts belonging
to the English on the coast of India, and their members having
subscribed such considerable sums towards the two millions intended
to be raised, that they could not be excluded from the trade, the
new company found it necessary to unite with the old company, and to
trade with one joint stock, and have ever since been styled "The
United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies."
The company have a governor, deputy-governor, and twenty-four
assistants or directors, elected annually in April.
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