Part 10 (1/2)
The next company established was that of the Russia Merchants, incorporated 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary, who were empowered to trade to all lands, ports, and places in the dominions of the Emperor of Russia, and to all other lands not then discovered or frequented, lying on the north, north-east, or north-west.
The Russia Company, as a company, are not a very considerable body at present; the trade thither being carried on by private merchants, who are admitted into this trade on payment of five pounds for that privilege.
It consists of a governor, four consuls, and twenty-four a.s.sistants, annually chosen on the 1st of March.
The Russia Merchants export from England some coa.r.s.e cloth, long- ells, worsted stuffs, tin, lead, tobacco, and a few other commodities.
England takes from Russia hemp, flax, linen cloth, linen yarn, Russia leather, tallow, furs, iron, potashes, &c., to an immense value.
The next company is the Eastland Company, formerly called Merchants of Elbing, a town in Polish Prussia, to the eastward of Dantzic, being the port they princ.i.p.ally resorted to in the infancy of their trade. They were incorporated 21 Elizabeth, and empowered to trade to all countries within the Sound, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Liefland, Prussia, and Pomerania, from the river Oder eastward, viz., with Riga, Revel, Konigsberg, Elbing, Dantzic, Copenhagen, Elsinore, Finland, Gothland, Eastland, and Bornholm (except Narva, which was then the only Russian port in the Baltic). And by the said patent the Eastland Company and Hamburg Company were each of them authorised to trade separately to Mecklenburg, Gothland, Silesia, Moravia, Lubeck, Wismar, Restock, and the whole river Oder.
This company consists of a governor, deputy-governor, and twenty- four a.s.sistants, elected annually in October; but either they have no power to exclude others from trading within their limits, or the fine for permission is so inconsiderable, that it can never hinder any merchants trading thither who is inclined to it; and, in fact, this trade, like the former, is carried on by private merchants, and the trade to Norway and Sweden is laid open by Act of Parliament.
To Norway and Denmark merchants send guineas, crown-pieces, bullion, a little tobacco, and a few coa.r.s.e woollens.
They import from Norway, &c., vast quant.i.ties of deal boards, timber, spars, and iron.
Sweden takes from England gold and silver, and but a small quant.i.ty of the manufactures and production of England.
England imports from Sweden near two-thirds of the iron wrought up or consumed in the kingdom, copper, boards, plank, &c.
The Turkey or Levant Company was first incorporated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and their privileges were confirmed and enlarged in the reign of King James I., being empowered to trade to the Levant, or eastern part of the Mediterranean, particularly to Smyrna, Aleppo, Constantinople, Cyprus, Grand Cairo, Alexandria, &c. It consists of a governor, deputy-governor, and eighteen a.s.sistants or directors, chosen annually, &c. This trade is open also to every merchant paying a small consideration, and carried on accordingly by private men.
These merchants export to Turkey chiefly broadcloth, long-ells, tins, lead, and some iron; and the English merchants frequently buy up French and Lisbon sugars and transport thither, as well as bullion from Cadiz.
The commodities received from thence are chiefly raw silk, grogram yarn, dyeing stuffs of sundry kinds, drugs, soap; leather, cotton, and some fruit, oil, &c.
The East India Company were incorporated about the 42nd of Elizabeth, anno 1600, and empowered to trade to all countries to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, exclusive of all others.
About the middle of King William's reign it was generally said their patent was illegal, and that the Crown could not restrain the English merchants from trading to any country they were disposed to deal with; and application being made to Parliament for leave to lay the trade open, the ministry took the hint, and procured an Act of Parliament (9 and 10 William III., cap. 44) empowering every subject of England to trade to India who should raise a sum of money for the supply of the Government in proportion to the sum he should advance, and each subscriber was to have an annuity after the rate of 8 per cent. per annum, to commence from Michaelmas, 1698. And his Majesty was empowered to incorporate the subscribers, as he afterwards did, and they were usually called the New East India Company, the old company being allowed a certain time to withdraw their effects. But the old company being masters of all the towns and forts belonging to the English on the coast of India, and their members having subscribed such considerable sums towards the two millions intended to be raised, that they could not be excluded from the trade, the new company found it necessary to unite with the old company, and to trade with one joint stock, and have ever since been styled ”The United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies.”
The company have a governor, deputy-governor, and twenty-four a.s.sistants or directors, elected annually in April.
The East India Company export great quant.i.ties of bullion, lead, English cloth, and some other goods, the product or manufacture of that kingdom, and import from China and India tea, china ware, cabinets, raw and wrought silks, coffee, muslins, calicoes, and other goods.
Bengal raw silk is bought at very low prices there, and is very useful in carrying on the manufactures of this kingdom.
China silk is of excellent staple, and comes at little above one- third of the price of Italian Piedmont silk.
The China silk is purchased at Canton, but their fine silk is made in the provinces of Nankin and Chekiam, where their fine manufactures are carried on, and where prodigious quant.i.ties of raw silk are made, and the best in all China.
The Royal African Company was incorporated 14 Charles II., and empowered to trade from Sallee, in South Barbary, to the Cape of Good Hope, being all the western coast of Africa. It carries no money out, and not only supplies the English plantations with servants, but brings in a great deal of bullion for those that are sold to the Spanish West Indies, besides gold dust and other commodities, as red wood, elephants' teeth, Guinea grain, &c., some of which are re-exported. The supplying the plantations with negroes is of that extraordinary advantage, that the planting sugar and tobacco and carrying on trade there could not be supported without them; which plantations are the great causes of the increase of the riches of the kingdom.
The Canary Company was incorporated in the reign of King Charles II., anno 1664, being empowered to trade to the Seven Islands, anciently called the Fortunate, and now the Canary Islands.
They have a governor, deputy-governor, and thirteen a.s.sistants or directors, chosen annually in March. This company exports baize, kerseys, serges, Norwich stuffs, and other woollen manufactures; stockings, hats, fustians, haberdashery wares, tin, and hardware; as also herrings, pilchards, salted flesh, and grain; linens, pipe- staves, hoops, &c. Importing in return Canary wines, logwood, hides, indigo, cochineal, and other commodities, the produce of America and the West Indies.
There is another company I had almost overlooked, called the Hudson's Bay Company; and though these merchants make but little noise, I find it is a very advantageous trade. They by charter trade, exclusively of all other his Britannic Majesty's subjects, to the north-west; which was granted, as I have been told, on account that they should attempt a pa.s.sage by those seas to China, &c., though nothing appears now to be less their regard; nay; if all be true, they are the very people that discourage and impede all attempts made by others for the opening that pa.s.sage to the South Seas. They export some woollen goods and haberdashery wares, knives, hatchets, arms, and other hardware; and in return bring back chiefly beaver-skins, and other skins and furs.
The last, and once the most considerable of all the trading companies, is that of the South Sea, established by Act of Parliament in the ninth year of the late Queen Anne; but, what by reason of the mismanagement of its directors in 1720, the miscarriage of their whale-fishery, and the intrigues of the Spaniards, their credit is sunk, and their trade has much decreased.