Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Excerpt from A Calendar of the Court Minutes Etc; Of the East India Company: 1644-1649
The other difficulty was a more general one, namely, how to pre serve the Company's monopoly now that a royal charter had ceased to possess its former validity. Not only was Courteen's Associa tion actively pursuing its rivalry with the older body, but others were encouraged to plan incursions into the field. Moreover, in the general loosening of the bonds of authority, private trade by the Company's servants had largely increased, with the result that the illicit importations of indigo and calicoes seriously affected current prices. Even while the King was still at Westminster, the confirmation by Parliament of the Company's privileges was urgently desired (see the preceding volume, p. II 5, and at the beginning of 1644 we find the Committees anxious to obtain from the two Houses an 'ordinance' which should at all events give them back temporarily their old control of the commerce. As we have seen, such an enactment, for the upholding of the trade and settling the government of the Fellowship of Merchants of London Trading to the East Indies' had been read a first time in the Commons on November 22, 1643. It passed the second reading and was referred to Committee on the loth of the following February; and when the annual fleet was under dispatch the Company were hopeful of an early settlement of this important question. Progress seems, however, to have been much delayed by the fact that the ordinance included clauses dealing with Courteen's claims, and agreement on these was not easily to be attained. There are several references to the consequent negotiations in the Minutes for February and March, 1644.
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