Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Calendar of the Court Minutes Etc; Of the East India Company, 1640-1643
The period covered by the present volume commences just before the calling of the Short Parliament and ends (in the middle of the Civil War) with the death of Pym and the southward march of the Scottish troops to aid the forces of the English Parliament. With the events of that momentous time the reader is doubtless familiar, and it is only necessary to ask him to bear in mind, when reading this record of the doings of the East India Company, the bewildering and threatening state of public affairs throughout the four years. How greatly trade in general, and that of the East India Company in particular, was impeded and injured will be easily realized. The general insecurity made every merchant cautious in the purchase of goods, especially such commodities as silks and calicoes and indigo, with the result that the Company could scarcely find a market, and was forced either to seek outlets abroad for the contents of its overstocked warehouses, or to distribute them among its members. Fresh capital was a pressing necessity; yet who would risk in distant enterprises money which he might urgently need to-morrow? To these troubles we may add, in the earlier part of the time, the celebrated pepper bargain, by which the King unintentionally in?icted a serious monetary loss upon the Company: and later on the considerable exactions made by the Parliamentary party for the service of the State, together with sweeping sequestrations of the adventures of the Royalist members. Weighing these distractions and difficulties, we almost wonder that the East India merchants succeeded in keeping their Company a?oat, and we pay a tribute of admiration to the men - particularly Cokayne and Methwold-who with undaunted courage steered the crazy vessel through all dangers into the comparatively calm waters of the Protectorate period.
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