"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٤‎٩] (١٧٨٢/١٩٢)

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In 1689 or 1690 the Court of the Company in London, i„ Ending 1689-90
^truot.ons to the Presideney of Bombay, foreshadowed th!
shifting of their policy in India to its ultimate basis of territorial
sovereignty, and made use of these memorable words- "The
^imreaseoE our revenue is the subject of our care, as much as our
Me ; tis that must mamtain our force when twenty accidents mav
mteiTnpt our trade; 'tis that must make us a nation in India
" without that, we are but as a great number of Interlopers, united by
" His Majesty's Royal Charter, fit only to trade where no body of power
" thinks it their interest to prevent us. "
As early at least as 1681 the exclusive rights of the East India Poroation of
ompany had excited the jealousy of other would-be traders to the a New Ea9t
East, and the appearance of interlopers, or private merchants who dis- liny, known"
regarded and violated the Company's monopoly, had been remarked. a ?. t J e " En_
An opinion soon after this became current that the Company's privileges pany in
were invalid, inasmuch as they rested on a royal grant which had not [he Old E it
been confirmed by Parliament, and in 1698 the House of Commons I^ia 'or
passed a resolution affirming the right of all Englishmen to trade to Co^paiTy.
the East Indies and elsewhere unless prohibited by Act of Parliament; 109S •
the immediate result of this pronouncement was an increase in the
interloping trade, which the company by legal and other means
endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, to combat. In 1698 a body of private
merchants, by tendering a loan of £2,000,000 for public purposes, secured
an Act of Parliament under which they were incorporated as the " The
General Society trading to the East Indies and by which the rights
of the Old Company—after this generally described as ^ The London
Company "—were abolished, the abolition to take effect from the 29th
of September 1701. On the 3rd of September 1698 the General
Society received their charter as a corporation, and it was understood
that the individual members would trade separately under the charter
to the amount of the capital possessed by each; * but two days later,
by a second charter, a group comprising the great bulk of the subscribers
to the General Society was incorporated under the name of " The English
Company trading to the East Indies, " and a second organised Company
was thus brought into the field as a rival to the London Company. The
London Company, after taking up stock in the English Company to the
amount of £315,000 as a precaution for the future^ prepared to compete with
them to the uttermost, and a bitter struggle began; the London Company
* In this respect, had no change been made, the New Company would h»ve differed
f'om the Old, which was, as already mentioned in the text, a joint-stock company.
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