"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎٤‎٨] (١٧٨٢/١٩١)

48
Establish
ments and
policy of the
East India
Company,
1653-98.
1661-87.
Company, whose own operations were conducted wholly on joint-stock
principles and who feared private competition. Both sides had recourse
to the Government of the day, and the issue remained long in doubt
Cromwell in 1655 borrowed £50,000 from the East India Company, but
simultaneously he permitted the Merchant Adventurers to equip and
despatch a small separate fleet; and during 1056 the matter remained
under discussion. At length, early in 1657, the Protector, on the advice
of a Council of State, decided that private enterprise by individual
holders in the United Joint Stock must be discontinued. The result was
the accession of a majority of the Merchant Adventurers to the East
India Company upon the usual joint-stock terms of membership.
The character of the East I ndia Company was at this time still in
tht main commeicial j but the Company had now began to assume, partly
driven by events and partly guided by experience, that political status
and position which were in the end to overshadow their mercantile origin.
In 1661, in part payment of the dowry of the Infanta of Portugal
on her marriage to King Charles II of England and in consideration of
an undertaking by England to guarantee the safety of the Portuguese
possessions in the East Indies, the island and harbour of Bombay were
transferred in full sovereignty from the Portuguese to the English
Crown; and in 1662 the Earl of Marlborough was sent from England
with a fleet to take possession ; but he was disappointed in the object of
his mission by the evasions of the local Portuguese authorities. At the
same time Sir George Oxinden was despatched to India as President
and Chief Director of the affairs of the East India Company in Asia;
and the question of how to combine or co-ordinate the rights of tin Kiu^
and the interests of the Company in the East began to be discussed.
In 1665 or 1666 it was proposed by the Company's servants at Surat that
aj p ication should be made for the King's permission to establish a
tory at Bombaj, of which possession had now been resigned by
e Portuguese; but the action eventually taken went far beyond
tins suggestion, for in 1668 Bombay Island was made over by the
Crown to the Company on an annual rent of £10 a year in gold, and
. .. J ®? y . were i mes ted with authority to maintain troops and establish
a oml administration there. In 16^5, under the royal patent, Sir John
Chid was appointed by the Company to be Captain-General and Admiral
lovT rT ^ EaBt; ^ in ]684 ' 14 ^ I-' decided to
to" 1UarterS ot the Company in India from Sunt
of ICS? " measure was not carried into effect until the
spring