466 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.
Ostend despairing resistance against overwhelming odds, abandoned
the place and set sail for Europe. Henceforward the Ostend
destroyed, Company became merely a name in Bengal, though isolated
1733. factors are mentioned as being still at BAnkibazar as late as
1744.
Attempts were made by the company to transfer its seat to'
other ports within the Empire, namely Fiume and Trieste on
the Adriatic; but the scheme fell through. Failing this, recourse
was had to other European powers. In I1728 King Frederick IV
of Denmark granted a special charter enabling members of the
suppressed company to join his subjects in the Indian trade,
and establishing an India House at Altona (near Hamburg).
Swedish Other members joined a new Swedish Company founded by
Company, Henry K6ning in I73I. The latter were left more or less
undisturbed, for the trade of the Swedes was all along rather
with the Farther East, China and Japan, than with India. But
in the case of the Danes the British and Dutch united in strong
diplomatic protests against what they considered a revival
under another name of the Ostend Company, and after some
Imperial demur the India House at Altona was abolished. The aims
Company of the Ostend Company were revived in 178I, when, largely
of Trieste,
1781-4. through the exertions of William Bolts, a renegade servant of
the English Company, the Imperial Company of Trieste was
chartered by the Emperor Joseph II. This company became
bankrupt in 1784.
What the Emperor of Austria had failed to effect, Frederick
the Great, King of Prussia, resolved to accomplish. Having
got possession of East Friesland in I744, he tried to convert
its capital, Embden, into a great northern port. Among other
measures, he gave his royal patronage to the Asiatic Trading
Company, started September I, 1750, and he founded the
Embden Beingalischie Handelsgesellschaft on January 24, 1753. The
a first of these companies had a capital of £17o,625; but six
ische
Iaandels- ships sent successively to China only defrayed their own ex,
gesell- penses, and yielded a profit of io per cent. in seven years. The
schaft,
1753. Bengal Company of Embden proved still more unfortunate;
its existence is summed up in two expeditions which did
not pay, and a long and costly lawsuit.
Dutch and The failure of Frederick the Great's efforts to secure for
English Prussia a share in the Indian trade resulted to some extent
jealousy
of the from the jealousy of the rival European Companies in India,
Embden The Dutch, French, and English pilots refused to show the
Com-
pany. way up the dangerous Hooghly river to the Embden ships, 'or
any other not belonging to powers already established in India.'
|
![[Digital South Asia Library]](/graphics/thirdlevel.gif)
