She seems to have been directly led to grant this
in consequence of the complaints among her subjects of the scarcity and
high price of pepper; this was occasioned by the monopoly of it being in
the power of the Turkey merchants and the Dutch, and from the circumstance
that by our war with Portugal, we could not procure any from Lisbon. The
immediate and principal object of this Company, therefore, was to obtain
pepper and other spices; accordingly their ships, on their first voyage,
sailed to Bantam, where they took in pepper, to the Banda isles; where they
took in nutmeg and mace, and to Amboyna, where they took in cloves. On this
expedition the English established a factory at Bantam. In 1610, this
Company having obtained a new charter from James I., built the largest
merchant ship that had ever been built in England, of the burthen of 1100
tons, which with three others they sent to India. In 1612 the English
factory of Surat was established with the permission of the Great Mogul;
this was soon regarded as their chief station on the west coast of India.
Their first factory on the coast of Coromandel, which they formed a few
years afterwards, was at Masulipatam: their great object in establishing
this was to obtain more readily the cloths of Coromandel, which they found
to be the most advantageous article to exchange for pepper and other
spices.
Pages:
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696