EAST INDIA COMPANIES, the various European trading companies chartered by their respective governments for the control of their trade in India and the adjacent countries and islands. From an early period, the Italian re publics had established a flourishing trade with these Eastern dominions, which was interrupted by the Moslem conquest of Egypt and Con stantinople and the establishment of Turkish rule in Africa and Europe. Under these cir cumstances arose that spirit of maritime ex ploration in the 15th century for the discovery of a new passage to the Indies which resulted in the discovery of America by Columbus while seeking a westward route, and in Vasco da Gama sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and reaching the Malabar coast in 1498. This latter discovery gave a new impulse and direc tion to commercial enterprise, and in nearly all the leading nations of Europe steps were taken to participate in the advantages pros pectively revealed in the opening up of this new ocean. highway. The 16th century was marked by the Portuguese establishing themselves India; by English efforts to discover overland and northern passages to India, which while fruitless in the latter direction gave rise to commercial relations with the northern coast of Russia; b' the union of Portugal and Spain in 1580, and in the war with England which closed the Spanish-Portuguese avenues for Indian produce to that country; and by the revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish dominion which gave a parallel check to the Dutch Indian trade. These two latter events compelled Holland and England to seek direct communication with In dia; in 1582, a Captain Stephens was the first Englishman to reach India via the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1586 Thomas Cavendish followed by way of Cape Horn. In the following decade the great historical commercial corporations known as the Dutch and the English East India companies were organized, and later were fol lowed by Danish, French and Swedish enter prises.
The Portuguese East India Company was organized in 1587, when, owing to laxity in the official management of the trade developed since 1498, it was entrusted to a company of Portuguese merchants in consideration of an annual payment. The company had a turbulent existence, chiefly of con9uest by the Dutch until its dissolution in 1640, since which time the un important Portuguese settlements have been under Crown administration.
The Dutch East India Company was formed at Amsterdam in 1595 as ea company for remote parts," in 1602 amalgamated with several minor companies and received a charter conferring the exclusive privilege of trade to the East Indies for 21 years, with the necessary civil and mili tary powers. It had a wonderfully prosperous career and its charter was extended to 1644, when French and English competition had made itself so felt that the Dutch company had diffi culty in raising the government subsidy for a 21 years' renewal of the charter.
The Peace of Westphalia in 1648, ensuring the independence of Holland, inaugurated a new era of prosperity; the company colonized the Cape of Good Hope between 1650 and 1670; in 1658 captured Ceylon from the Portuguese; the same year took Formosa, from which they were driven three years later by a Chinese adventurer; in 1663 obtained possession of the chief Portuguese settlements along the Malabar coast, and in r666 monopolized the spice trade by the capture of Macassar. Their charter was renewed periodically until 1776; in 1781, owing to the expenses of the prolonged struggle against English encroachment, the company had to be assisted with a government loan, and in 1795 the proclamation of the Batavian republic terminated its existence; in 1798 the mother country assumed the administration of the company's former possessions.
The English East India Company formed in 1599 and chartered by Queen Elizabeth in 1600, under the title of the ((Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies,' was the most important, commercially and historically, of the East India companies. The trading limits assigned by the charter for 15 years were Gall the islands, ports, havens, cities, creeks, towns and places of Asia, Africa, and America, or any of them, beyond the Cape of Bona Esperanza to the Straits of Magellan, with the exception of such places as are already in possession of any Christian prince in league or amity with the British Crown who shall re fuse his consent to such trade.* The company comprised 125 stockholders, including a gover nor and 24 directors elected annually to super vise the company's business. The early voyages . .