The EIC built forts, had a navy (the Bombay Navy), minted coins, had a huge archive of documents (now in the British Library), ran its own courts, and maintained its prisons for those who raped them. The company has even sponsored major surveying expeditions. The EIC Directors` Court selected its staff internally and entry was through examinations, a procedure later copied by other UK institutions. Indians were excluded from the CIS. In the 18th century, investors in the EIC (Court of Owners) came from all walks of life and included men, women (especially widows), nobles, politicians, military, merchants, administrators, financiers, professionals and small investors (including foreigners). Everyone trusted the IEC and looked forward to the dividends based on its continued success. The East India Company was so powerful because it had a monopoly on trade with India and China. The company could pay a large army to capture new territories, build fortresses, and arm its ships to protect its global trade network. East India College was founded in 1806 as a training centre for “writers” (i.e.

employees) serving the company. It was originally located at Hertford Castle, but in 1809 it moved to purpose-built premises in Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire. The college closed in 1858; but in 1862 the buildings were reopened as a public school, now Haileybury and Imperial Service College. The British East India Company (1600-1874) was the largest and most successful private company ever founded. Almighty, wherever it colonized, the deployment of its own private army and increasing territorial control, particularly in India, meant that it came under increasing scrutiny by the British government in the late 18th century. The independence of the EIC, restricted by successive acts of parliament for many decades due to allegations of corruption and irresponsibility, ended with the chaos of the Sepoy mutiny of 1857-8. The British Crown replaced the EIC Board of Directors as the sovereign of British India, and Parliament formally dissolved the EIC in 1874. English traders frequently engaged in hostilities with their Dutch and Portuguese counterparts in the Indian Ocean. The company won a great victory over the Portuguese at the Battle of Swally in 1612 at Suvali in Surat. The company decided to explore the feasibility of a territorial anchorage in mainland India with official permission from Britain and the Mughal Empire and asked the Crown to launch a diplomatic mission. [29] The company, under such obvious patronage, quickly succeeded in overshadowing the Portuguese, who had established their bases at Goa and Bombay (which were later ceded to England as part of Catherine of Braganza`s dowry).

He succeeded in creating fortresses in Surat (where a factory was built in 1612), Madras (1639), Bombay (1668) and Calcutta (1690). By 1647, the company had 23 factories and 90 employees in India. The most important factories became the fortified forts of Fort William in Bengal, Fort St. George in Madras and Bombay Castle. In 1634, the Mughal emperor extended his hospitality to English traders in the Bengal region (and completely renounced customs duties on trade in 1717). The main activities of the company were now cotton, silk, indigo, saltpeter and tea. During this time, he invaded the Dutch monopoly of the spice trade in the Strait of Malacca. In 1711, the company established a trading post in Guangzhou, China, to exchange tea for money. In 1657, Oliver Cromwell renewed the charter of 1609 and made minor changes in the attitude of society.

The company`s status was further strengthened by the restoration of the monarchy in England. By a series of five laws around 1670, King Charles II. It has the right to acquire autonomous territories, mint currency, command fortresses and troops and form alliances, make war and peace, and exercise civil and criminal jurisdiction over acquired territories. The company, surrounded by commercial competitors, other imperial powers, and sometimes hostile Indigenous leaders, felt a growing need for protection. The freedom to manage its military affairs was therefore a welcome blessing and the company quickly raised its own forces in the 1680s, mainly among the local indigenous population. By 1689, the Company was arguably a “nation” on the Indian mainland, independently administering the great presidencies of Bengal, Madras and Bombay, and possessing impressive and intimidating military strength. From 1698, the company was allowed to use the motto “Auspico Regis et Senatus Angliae”, which means “Under the patronage of the King and Parliament of England”. The power of the enterprise was so great that there were voices of protest in Britain that the EIC was taking too much money out of its home economy and that its massive imports of Indian textiles were harming the traditional English wool trade. One response to this was increased tariffs on cotton imports and the passing of laws in favor of wool, such as the decision in the last quarter of the 17th century that banned people in England from being buried in anything other than wool clothing. Laws quickly went further, completely banning the import of finished cotton fabrics into Britain, but by the second half of the 18th century the material was so popular that it led to the rise of a manufacturing industry.

The EIC traded well with textiles from all over the world, but now Britain has produced its own textile factories in huge textile factories concentrated in densely populated areas such as Lancashire cities. In this sense, the EIC was partly responsible for this sector of the industrial revolution in Britain. Despite China`s ban on opium imports, reaffirmed by Emperor Jiaqing in 1799, the drug was smuggled from Bengal to China by smugglers and agencies such as Jardine, Matheson & Co., David Sassoon & Co. and Dent & Co., averaging 900 tons per year. The proceeds of drug traffickers who landed their cargo on Lintin Island went to the company`s factory in Guangzhou, and by 1825 most of the money needed to buy tea in China came from the illegal opium trade. The British East India Company was a private company founded in December 1600 to establish a British presence in the lucrative Indian spice trade, which until then had been monopolized by Spain and Portugal. The company eventually became an immensely powerful agent of British imperialism in South Asia and the de facto colonial ruler of large parts of India. Partly because of endemic corruption, the company was gradually stripped of its commercial monopoly and political control, and its Indian possessions were nationalized by the British Crown in 1858. It was officially abolished in 1874 by the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act (1873). In 1612, James I commissioned Sir Thomas Roe, Mughal emperor Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir (r. 1605-1627), to arrange a commercial treaty that would give the company the exclusive right to live and build factories in Surat and other areas.

In return, the company offered to provide the emperor with goods and rarities from the European market. This mission was successful, and Jahangir sent a letter to James through Sir Thomas Roe:[29] The EIC was heavily involved in what became known as the “triangular trade,” in which precious metals were exchanged for Indian-made goods (especially fine textiles) and then resold in the East Indies for spices. The spices (especially pepper) were then shipped to London, where they made prices high enough to take advantage of the initial investment in metal. Later in its history, the EIC made huge profits from its control of the salt trade, the tea trade, and opium sales to China. The EIC has imported so much tea into the UK that it has gone from an expensive commodity to a cheaper beverage than locally produced beer. Aided by cheap sugar imports from Caribbean slave plantations, the British became a nation of tea drinkers. The trend spread to the North American colonies, so much so that when they had to pay taxes on EIC tea imports, it provoked the Boston Tea Party, which degenerated into a revolution. The company employed many junior employees, known as “editors,” to record details of accounting, management decisions, and business-related activities, such as minutes of meetings, copies of company orders and contracts, and the filing of reports and copies of ship minutes. Several well-known British scholars and writers had authorship of the Society, such as Henry Thomas Colebrooke in India and Charles Lamb in England.

An Indian writer of some importance in the 19th century Ram Mohan was Roy, who learned English, Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Greek and Latin. [62] However, the Company was still a semi-independent organization that enjoyed a number of commercial and economic rights and privileges unmatched by any other commercial company in the Reich. At the Battle of Pulo Aura, probably the company`s most notable naval victory, Nathaniel Dance, commodore of an Indian convoy aboard the Warley, led several Indians into battle with a French squadron and repulsed them. About six years earlier, on January 28, 1797, five Indians, Woodford, under the command of Captain Charles Lennox of Taunton Castle, Captain Edward Studd, Canton, Captain Abel Vyvyan, Boddam, Captain George Palmer, and Captain Ocean, John Christian Lochner, had met Admiral de Sercey and his squadron of frigates. On this occasion, the Indians managed to get to safety without even firing shots. Finally, on June 15, 1795, General Goddard played a major role in the capture of seven Dutch East Indies off St. Helena. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, Britain overtook its European rivals. The demand for Indian raw materials was boosted by the need to preserve troops and the economy during the war, as well as by the increased availability of raw materials and efficient production methods.