THERE never was a company which so well deserved the
title of Merchants Venturers as the famous East India Company, which not only filled its coffers with the gold and jewels of the East, but enrolled armies, made wars, and deposed Monarchs. History affords no parallel to its successful and courageous career. Though the ledger always came before the sword in its regard, it did not shrink from the necessity of conquest ; and we owe our most splendid possession to the energy and foresight of the brave soldiers and skilful states- men appointed by this private Company. It was founded as the sixteenth century was drawing to its close. Sir Thomas Smythe, an Alderman of the City of London, was its first Governor, and its first fleet sailed under the command of Captain Lancaster on February 13th, 1601. The Captain was furnished with a. letter from Queen Elizabeth "to the greate and mightie Kinge—our Lovinge Brother Greetings." The letter, which could be presented to any Oriental potentate whom the expedition might encounter, was couched in terms which it would have puzzled the dusky Monarch to understand. But the chief difficulties of Captain Lancaster and his companions came not from the Great Mogul, but from his Portuguese rivals. For some years the Company met with small success. The East was a new world; the voyage round the Cape bf Good Hope was arduous; and disease killed more of the adventurers than the sword. Yet, ineffective as the early experiments were, the records of them are full of interest. I 1607, for instance, • Ledger and Sword; or, The Honourable Company of Merchants of England Trading to the Bast Indies. By Heckles Willson. 2 role. London: Longmatis
and Co. [21s. net.] •
we are told that William Keeling, in command of the ' Dragon,' invited his colleague, Captain Hawkins, " to a ffishe dinner and had Hamlet acted abord me : which I permitt to keepe my people from idleness and unlawfull games or sleepe." It must have been a wondrous sight to see Hamlet, then but five years old, played by a ship's crew. But Keeling's entertainment proves the early popularity of Shakespeare, and we cannot too highly applaud the energy of a captain who instructed his crew in a tragedy at Sierra Leone outward bound for India. But though the Englishmen were slow in getting a footing, though the Dutch and Portuguese were ever on the watch to interrupt them, they were not discouraged, and in 1613 they were at last granted their first concession at Surat. But their difficulties were not over. The Dutch still hung upon their skirts, the Company at home was hampered by political dissensions, and it was not until, in 1639, Francis Day founded Madras that our Empire in the East was assured. Henceforward England's policy was constant, and the energy of Sir Josiah Child placed the affairs of the Company on a safe footing. This distinguished administrator, by suppressing interlopers and investing greater power in the agents, increased the profits of the Company to such a degree that under James II. it touched the zenith of its prosperity. " Having now, and necessarily," so ran the East India Company's statement to Parliament, " so many towns, forts and garrisons, ships of war and tenders, we cannot maintain them under the expense of E300,000 per annum, besides the infinite charge of presents, buildings, guards and ships." This plain statement is an eloquent testimony to the Company's progress, and from this moment the Company's success, if interrupted, never per- manently declined.
But in romance and interest the eighteenth century is the golden age of the East India Company. At the outset it boasted the services of the celebrated Governor Pitt, who, interloper as he was, founded one of our most distinguished families. Though in other respects, he served the Com- pany with courage and loyalty, he could not resist the purchase of the famous jewel, which, then known as the Pitt diamond, was bought by the Regent of France for £135,000. However, nothing is more striking in the history of the East India Company at this period than the roll of distinguished men who went to seek their fortune in India. Pitt was succeeded in the Governorship of Madras by Gulstone Addison, a brother of the essayist ; and he, harbouring, no doubt, a sentiment for literature, had found a place for Milton's only grandson, Caleb Clarke, who performed the humble office of clerk in the parish church of Madras. Nor are these the only names which illumine the rolls of the Company at this period. Soon after the death of Addison, John Russell, Cromwell's grandson, was appointed Governor of Fort William and President in Bengal. But Russell, though he held office for some years, was a mere opportunist, agreeing with the Company that it was his best policy " to carry it fair to both parties when it can be done so as not to be discovered," and wholly unfit to carry out the schemes of aggrandisement which were suggested in London. Indeed, the time was come for stronger men than Addison and Russell, and by the good fortune which has never deserted England a hero was found to meet the opportunity.
While in the seventeenth century the Dutch were our rivals in the East, in the eighteenth century we had to fight the French for the domination of India. In 1746 Fort St. George capitulated to La Bourdonnais. Henceforth the Court of Directors was called upon to defend its property by force of arms. It appointed the renowned Stringer Lawrence com- mander of the forces, and he, with the keen eye of a great soldier, early recognised the military talent of Clive. In 1757 the battle of Plassey was fought, and within a few years from this date the power of England in India was firmly established. Henceforth the interests of the Company were defended by the most distinguished of English soldiers. It was in India that many of our greatest generals first learned their trade. James Wolfe and Eyre Coote, the great Wellington himself, there won their spurs ; and though the regulations of Parliament curtailed its powers, though in 1784 William Pitt's India Bill appointed a Board of Control, the Company still enjoyed vast privileges and boundless wealth. When Pitt, in introducing his Bill, asserted that " the rise or downfall of the Company was an event intimately connected with the vigour or decline of the British Constitution," he was paying it no empty compliment. Even fifty years later Macaulay was persuaded that if the Company were an anomaly, it was part of a system where everything is anomaly. "It is," said he, "the strangest of all governments, but it is designed for the strangest of all empires." The Charter, however, was renewed in 1833 for but twenty years, and four years after it again expired the Indian Mutiny brought its power to an end for ever. In 1858 the Company made its last petition in vain. It called the nation to witness that, without the aid or control of Parliament, it had laid the foundations of a vast Empire; it appealed confidently to the verdict of history; but the British Government were obdurate, Mr. Disraeli's Bill was passed, and in 1858 Queen Victoria was proclaimed throughout India, and Lord Canning was appointed her first Viceroy. The great Company had for more than two hundred and fifty years enjoyed a career unexampled in history, and we cannot contemplate the achievements of our Merchants Venturers without pride. Nor can the record of those achievements be more easily studied than in Mr. Beckles Willson's concise and well-ordered history, which we confidently commend to our readers for its sound judgment and careful study of documents.
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