CHAPTER II.

A Birth in Founder's Hall.

OF any diplomatic difficulties which were then threatening at Court, the band of active spirits amongst the merchants of London, who, early in 1599, informally met for the purpose of considering the project for a new Company for trade to the Indies, guessed nothing. The moment seemed propitious, and they were chiefly bent upon drawing up a memorial to the Queen in Council, showing why they should have the full royal sanction to trade, and be granted a patent of monopoly.

At a meeting in April the first practical step was made. One of those assembled, John Mildenhall, offered to start at once overland for the Court of the Grand Mogul, and there negotiate a treaty with his Indian majesty against the arrival of the chartered adventurers by sea. This was far to outstrip the Dutch in enterprise. For as yet the Dutch had no trade with the people of the mainland, but only with certain of the Spice Islands, such as Java, Sumatra and the Moluccas; while as for the once mighty commerce of the Portuguese, for two or three decades past it had been sunk in inertia and dwindled helplessly.

The enterprising Mildenhall's offer was accepted ; he was engaged and furnished forth with money for his travels. Elizabeth herself received this first

1599]

FORMING THE COMPANY

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scout and pioneer of the East India Company at Court, just prior to his departure, and graciously provided him with a letter to the Emperor Akbar, such as Her Majesty had previously entrusted to other adventurers. Thus equipped and inspirited, Mildenhall departed on what proved in the sequel to be a romantic but fruitless mission.

The merchants, so long dilatory, now got briskly to business. An association was formed and a contract drawn up. The latter, still extant, is deeply interesting as the first authentic deed which occurs in the annals of direct maritime trade between England and India. Its character and contents are sufficiently indicated in its opening sentence :

"The names of suche persons as have written with there owne hands to venter in the pretended voiage to the East Indies (the whiche it maie please the Lorde to prosper) and the somes that they will adventure; the xxij September, 1599."1

A few weeks before this the Dutch had sent a message to their English neighbours telling them they sorely lacked ships for the new Indian trade, and offering to buy or charter some of those lying in the Thames.

The reply vouchsafed to the Amsterdam agents, waiting at the Old Steelyard of the Hamburg Com

1 A faithful transcript of the Company's first Court Book was published in 1886 by the late Henry Stevens, of Vermont, with an introduction by Sir George Birdwood. The above forms the first entry; the last records a committee meeting, 28th June, 1603. "Within those four years is contained the germ of every triumph subsequently achieved in the seas and lands of the East."-See The Dawn of British Trade to the East.

pany to commence negotiations for English shipping, was of no uncertain tenor :

"Our merchants of London have need of all our ships and have none to sell to the Dutch. We ourselves intend forthwith to have trade with the East Indies." And to follow up words with deeds, the merchants instantly subscribed a sum of £30,133 6s. 8d., divided into numerous shares or adventures, the subscriptions of individuals varying from £100 to £3,000, large sums in those days. Wherefore the Dutch agents were fain to return to their superiors empty-handed to give warning that this time the London merchants were in earnest, that these new efforts called upon the Flemish adventurers to push forward strenuously towards the expansion and monopoly of the trade which Van Houtman, acting upon English example, had founded four years before.

The merchants were not in error; the moment was indeed propitious; the recent upgrowth of English trade and shipping was astonishing. At the beginning of Elizabeth's reign London boasted altogether only 317 merchants, of whom 96 were members of the Mercers' Company. It was then "impossible for the City to raise a loan of £10,000," whereas now London was advancing to the Queen loans of £60,000. Then as to shipping, Froude states that in 1572 the burden of all vessels engaged in ordinary commerce in the kingdom barely exceeded 50,000 tons. The largest sailing vessels from London were of about 250 tons burden. Even in 1588 there were but two or three in the kingdom of

1597]

400 tons.

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Now there were many of 600 and 800 tons burden, and in a few brief years the East India adventurers were to launch one of 1,100 tons for the India trade.

Nor was this all that told in our favour; the Hanseatic merchants had just been ordered to quit England, and the English merchants in the Hanse towns came back home to put fresh life into the export trade. Our buyers and sellers had long looked with jealous eyes upon the intruding Hansards, as they were called, and finally, in 1597, Elizabeth commanded the agents of this powerful league of Continental traders to quit their premises at the Steelyard within fourteen days.1

The new body of merchant adventurers sought a formal charter, because without such charter all trade -foreign or domestic, all craftsmanship even-was held unlawful. Everything but the air was hedged about; the regulated companies were only a development of the town guilds adapted for the purpose of foreign trade. "In the regulated companies," says a recent writer, "at that time chiefly represented by the Russia, the Turkey and the Eastland, every member or 'freeman' traded solely on his own ac

It

'The story of this chief of European trading guilds is, as Mr. Horton Ryley reminds us, a veritable romance of commerce. "negotiated with monarchs and threatened princes". Its chief depot in England was long situate where the Cannon Street railway station now stands, known then as the Steelyard, whereon once stood the great balance of the City, on which all imported and exported merchandise had to be officially weighed. After their expulsion the property remained in the hands of the representatives of the Hansards until 1853, when a syndicate purchased it for the sum of £72,000.

count, subject only to the regulations of the association. In fact, they may be regarded as growing out of the trade guilds, modified to meet the requirements of their more enlarged sphere of action. In the guilds each member purchased a licence to ply his trade in his own district at his personal risk, the guild itself being irresponsible for his liabilities in case of failure. On the other hand, he enjoyed all the advantages of membership in an incorporated trade which could not be exercised by outsiders, even though residents in the district. In the same way no subject of the Crown could trade in any foreign district, where a regulated company was established, without first acquiring membership by the payment of a fee.

"Even in the earliest of these chartered bodies the principle of apprenticeship was enforced, so that, as in the guilds, he who served his time to a member acquired ipso facto the privilege of membership; or, if a fine was exacted, it was either nominal or of much less amount than that imposed on outsiders. The fines exacted helped towards the general working expenses of the Company, including the support of consuls in the foreign ports where they enjoyed exclusive rights."

" 1

A patent of monopoly once secured from the Sovereign, and the Turkey Company, alone of the subjects of the realm, might exchange goods with the merchants of Aleppo and Constantinople, and the Muscovy Company enjoy alone the trade with the dealers of Astrakhan and Bokhara in perpetuity,

1Cawston and Keane: The Early Chartered Companies.