Question I. Under a Regulation how can the Forts and Islands of St. Helena and Bom­bay, Fort St. George and Bencoelen now in the Companies Possession be paid for and after­terwards maintained?

Answer I. A regulated Company must have Power to make Levies on Ships that go to India either here or there, to raise Money for Freedoms, and if Occasion be, by Loans at Interest or Gratis, of all that will be of the Company, sufficient for the purchasing the present Companies dead Stock, as Amunition, &c. according to an equitable Valuation by indifferent Men chosen on both sides; and for the future sup­port of their ordinary and extraordinary Charge, even as the Turkey Company do for the Maintaining an Embassadour at the Ottoman Court, Consuls, Ministers and other Officers at their several Ports of Trade there, as well as at home; which together with Presents made frequently to the Grand Signi [...]r and his Ministers, amounts yearly to a great many Thousand Pounds, and as much as perhaps would bear the needful Charge in India; for in reality Fort St. George and Bombay are of little or no use to the Compa­ny or Trade of India, and a great many think they had better quitt them, as the Dutch have lately Policat, a strong Place near Fort St. George, and the only Fort they had any where in all the Mogul's Dominions, not thinking it worth their Charge to keep it. For while they are in Peace they will be protected by the Mogul in his Coun­try, and if they should again return to the Folly of Warring with that Prince, they cannot defend or keep them against one of the greatest Monarchs in the World.

Quest. II. What Security can be had of those People in India when you trust them with your Money for making Investments.

Answ. II. The same security as the present Company have, the Honesty of the Peo­ple and the Protection of the Government; for the Company trusted most, and their greatest Investments were made where they had no Forts, as at all the subordinate Fa­ctories on the Coast of Cormandell, in Bengall, and at Surat, and the Factories under that Presidency, and though great Sums have been trusted to those People, yet there is no Example of their having Committed any Violence upon our Persons or Estates, but we have had always Justice done us, and better Treatment then from European Govern­ments, and in Turkey great Sums upon meer Pretences have been extorted from that Company by Tyrannical Bashaws, Cadies, and other Officers Civil and Military.

Quest. III. Will it not be a means to ruine the Trade and lessen the Exportation of our Ma­nufactures and Growths?

Answ. III. It's evident the Merchants of England are greatly inclin'd in all their Commerce to export our own Manufactures, and vend them at reasonable Advance, as to Turkey under that regulated Company, so much Cloth is annually carried as can possibly be there disposed of, and in time of Peace especially, it hath been sold so cheap, that we have almost excluded from that Trade, the French and Dutch, and the same upon a Regulation will be done in India, much better than by a Joynt-Stock: For particulars can and will be obliged to fell for little Profit, and the present East-India Company as an Excuse for their having lately permitted Armenians and other particu­lar Merchants to Export to India our Manufactures paying them 12 per Cent. for the License. alledg'd it was for the improving that Trade.

Quest. IV. Will not the Natives raise the Price of their Goods, and lower the Price of ours?

Answ. IV. This Argument may as well be urged to have the Trade to every parti­cular Country in the World in Joynt-Stocks; but Traffick must have its natural course, sometime the People of those Places where we have a Trade sell us their Commodi­ties [Page 3] Dear, and buy ours of us Cheap, according to the Quantities of Goods to be Purchas'd of, and Sold to them; at another time, when a good Market hath made them provide largely of those sorts of Goods, and less Demand is for them, then we Buy Cheap, and carrying fewer of our Commodities, we Sell the Dearer: So Dear Goods beget Cheap, and Cheap beget Dear, every Man in this as all other Trades, will take care of his own Interest and use his utmost Skill, and make Provision of Stock in the Country to Buy his Goods, and give out his Money in the interval of Ship­ping, to be returned him by the next, as is practised in Turkey, and most other Foreign Trades, and particularly to the Spanish and Portugal American Plantations, whereby the English Trading in their Ships are two and often three Years out of their Money; however the cheaper we Sell our Manufactures and Growths, the more we shall intro­duce the Expence of them and prevent our Neighbours in their Competition with us.

Quest. V. How will you maintain the Pepper Trade on Sumatra and North Coast of India and Malabar.

Answ. V. It's true the Company have a small Fort at Bencoelen which may as well be maintain'd by a regulated Company (as hath been already prov'd) as by a Joynt-Stock; but the Place is so very unhealthful, and kills so many of our Sea-men and of the small Garrison and Factory that reside there, that I believe it hath not, nor ever will countervail this Loss, nor the Expence of keeping it; especially since vast Quan­tities of Pepper may be procured on the North Coast of India and Malabar, where the present East-India Company have no Forts; but Factories may be settled there, and there is no reason to believe that the Raja's or Princes of those Countreys will give better Treatment to a Joynt-Stock Company than to a regulated one, which will much more encrease Trade in their Countries.

Quest. VI. How will you support the Trade to India, if the Dutch or any others should at­tempt by force or fraud to out you of it, or defend it in Case of a War with them, or any other European?

Answ. VI. The present Company have sadly experienced, that making War is a very chargeable and pernicious way of Righting themselves in India, because of the great distance of place; and for any Injury that may be done us there, by the Dutch, or other Europeans, satisfaction must be obtained at home; and 'tis to be presumed, that our Government will be always as ready to support the Subject, and obtain Repa­ration in the Case of a Regulated Company, (which is more National, and will very much add to its Revenues) as of a Joynt-Stock, which will always have the same need of it, or any other of our Trades; and in War there may be Convoys, as to America, and other remote Countries, or we may send out Ships of Force only, which may go out, and return home in Fleets, as the Regulated Company shall direct, and as the Turkey Company practise, when in the General Meetings of all the Traders, they appoint what Number of Ships, and of what Force shall unite and proceed to the several Ports of Turkey.

Quest. VII. Will it not be very difficult to keep in good order, and govern the several Facto­ries, and Merchants that shall reside in India?

Answ. VII. Every Factory may have Consuls, with Powers given them, by Virtue of a Legal Authority to govern their respective Factories, and be always answerable to the Regulated Company, for their well or ill Administration; besides, it will be very useful to maintain an Embassador at the Mogul's Court, by which Methods the Turkey Company have govern'd their several Factories with great Oeconomy.

Quest. VIII. Will not Interlopers go out from, and return to other Countries in Europe, and so avoid those Impositions that a Regulated Company must necessarily lay on all Ships and Goods for their support?

Answ. VIII. When all that will may be free of the Company, and upon very easie Terms may Trade with what Stock they please to all parts of India, it will not be worth any body's while to attempt Interloping; and as great Powers may be given to a Re­gulated Company, as any other, to prevent it; and indeed such an Authority may be much safer given into their hands than to a Joynt-Stock.

Quest. IX. The Dutch are esteemed the best Judges of Trade, and its Advantages, of any other People, and do not they carry on their Trade to India and Guinea in Joynt-Stocks.

Answ. IX. The Trade to India and Guinea in Holland had both of them their Origi­nal in the Minority of that State, when they strugled with the mighty Power of Spain, in a long and bloody War; and the Spaniards and Portuguese, who were then under the same Monarch, being Masters of the whole Trade of both the Indies and Guinea, the States, to weaken their Enemies, encourag'd Merchants to send Ships into those Seas, by giving them Commissions of War; and they effectually did it, by taking conside­rable [Page 4] Booties from them, and augmenting their Force, had great success at Sea, and seiz'd on some of their Fortifications. This brought the Merchants of Amsterdam to joyn with those of other Towns; whereby prosecuting their Trade, and Privateering several Years, they became very considerable; when the States politickly united them farther, that they might yet be more serviceable to annoy their Enemies, and brought the whole Trade and War (for so it was) to both Indies and Guinea, into Joynt-Stocks, and gave them mighty Priviledges, especially to the East-India Company, that of pay­ing no Customs in or out, which they enjoy to this day, and this was the reason so long ago, that induced the States to settle these two Companies; and not, that they thought it was best so to do, for the general good of the Trade, or that it could not be as well managed by a Regulation, if their Circumstances had been otherwise, but as an Engine of War, and Depredation on their Enemies; and the East-India Company being thus Establisht, as it were by Conquest, and thereby incumbring themselves with a great many Fortresses in the South Sea and Ceylon, to maintain to themselves the Spice Islands, there seems a kind of necessity upon them, to drive that Trade in a Joynt-Stock; for indeed their Establishment in India is another Commonwealth, which howsoever useful the States may think it to them, and that because many of them are con­cerned in the Stock, they still keep it upon the old Foundation, yet there is nothing more evident, than that this Company make no profits by the Trade, for their Actions rise and fall every Week, and are now sold at about 500 per Cent, but whoever buys, or hath for several Years past bought at these Rates, hardly make 4 per Cent per Annum of their Money, for they seldom receive Dividends, and when they do, they are ve­ry small, and these suspected and judg'd by most to be rather out of their Quick-Stock, than real profit; for they owe, and continually take up vast Sums at Interest at home as well as all over India: So, as I have said, the Company get nothing by the Trade, whatever advantages the States may imagine they draw from it, and therefore I think we have no cause to envy them their manner of carrying it on; nor indeed could we imitate them, were it ever so desirable. And this is a certain truth, that from the Year 1653, to 1656, while our Trade to India lay open to all, the Holland East-India Com­pany sunk greatly in their Stock and Credit; for we under-sold them in all East-India Commodities, and brought home Spice in spight of them, procured at Macassar, and else-where; which gave them such apprehensions of losing their Trade, that to pre­vent it (as I have been inform'd by good hands) they employ'd some Persons to in­fluence Oliver Cromwel to establish this present Joynt-Stock; which he did in 1656, and they gave a Pention to two of the then Committee of 500 l. a Year each, to pre­vent our possessing Polleron, or any other of the Spice Islands we had a just Claim to.—wherefore it is not to be wondred, that the Dutch East-India Company are at this time so very apprehensive that we shall lay open the Trade to India, since they will so sensibly feel the effects of it, by our vast Importation and Exportations of all Commodities, and the affording them at so much a cheaper Rate than they can possibly, besides all Combinations with Colleagues here to inhance the Prices will be remov'd, as well as the opportunity of Bribing in order to do good Offices.

The same Consequences happen'd to the Holland Guinea or West-India Company, in the Year 1660, when we had that Trade also open, their Stock was then worth but 8 per Cent. but no sooner was the Trade to Guinea limited here by a Joynt-Stock, but that Company began to flourish again, and their Actions are now worth 80 per Cent. So that whatsoever reason the Dutch have for the keeping the Trade to the Indies and Guinea in Joynt-Stocks; the only Monopolies they have it is evident, that it will be infinitely more to the advantage of this Nation to carry them on by Regulated Com­panies; Which will certainly have all these good effects.

It will increase the Exportation of our own Manufactures and Growths.

We shall be able to furnish Europe with all the Commodities of those Countries, much cheaper than any other People, especially the Dutch.

It will add greatly to our Navigation.

The Crown will gain much by the Customs.

And it will in every point be of infinite advantage to the Publick, as well as to all Adventurers and Traders, whose Right and Property it is, that the Commerce and Traffick by Sea, be as unlimited and free as the Inland Trade.

All which, I doubt not, Sir, will convince You, and all reasonable, disinterested Men, That Joynt-Stocks in Trade, and particularly that of East-India, are of evil Con­sequence to the Kingdom.

10 Octob. 1691.