458 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.
Company. In 1653 Fort St. George was raised to the rank of
a Presidency and made independent of Bantam, to which it
The had hitherto been subordinate. In 1633 Ralph Cartwright
English in founded our first factories in Bengal at Hariharpur and
Bengal,
1633. Balasore; and in i65r the English established themselves at
the more important position of Hooghly, largely through the
good offices of Gabriel Boughton, who was surgeon in the
household of the Mughal viceroy of Bengal. In I658 the
factories in Bengal were made subordinate to Madras, which
was itself dependent on the chief Presidency of Surat.
But while Englishmen in the East tenaciously maintained
their hold upon the Indian sea-board, the East India Company
at home had fallen upon evil days. Since I628, in which year
the Commons disregarded their Petition and Remonstrance,
opposition to their claims had been growing up, based partly
on jealousy of the monopoly, partly on a mediaeval theory
Courten's of foreign trade. In T635 Charles I granted to Sir William
Associa- Courten or Courteen and others a licence for trade in the
tion, 1635. East. Courten died the next year, but his son and his
associates continued the trade, and became known as the
Assada Merchants from their plantation in the island of
Madagascar. Their captains committed depredations in the
East, for which the servants of the London Company were
called to account by Indian rulers. The Company's petitions
to the king passed unheeded in the constitutional struggle
with the Parliament and in the turmoil of the Civil War. It
became increasingly difficult to raise the Joint Stocks necessary
for the continuation of the trade, and the commercial opera-
Union tions of the Company were practically suspended. In I649
2witht's they were driven to some form of union with Courten's Asso-
Associa- ciation. But both bodies had been nearly ruined in the long
tion, duel; other forces of opposition had come to a head, and the
1649. popular cry was raised that the trade should be thrown open
Crom- to the nation. The Company, driven to despair, threatened in
well's I657 to withdraw their factories from India, till the Protector,
charter,
I657. who had long hesitated as to his course, granted them a new
charter. Under its provisions the first permanent Joint Stock
of £739,782 was raised, and the settlements in India were
restaffed with factors. At the Restoration Cromwell's charter
Charter of was conveniently ignored, but the Company obtained a similar
CharleslI, one from Charles II, which granted them the right to coin
i66i.
money and exercise jurisdiction over English subjects in the
East. Under the Restoration Government the Company en-
joyed a period of great prosperity, and the value of their stock
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