CiiAP. VIII.] A NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY. 373
passed both houses by considerable majorities, and obtained the royal assent, a.d. 1698. The old Company, though powerfully supported, had lost favoui* with the public by the acts of bribery which had been proved against them ; and even durinf the discussion of the bill which doomed them to extinction, had sustained new damage from the report of a parliamentary committee which had been appointed to examine their books ; for in this report it was more than insinuated that by a kind of juggle the value of their stock had been gi*eatly exaggerated, and large dividends had been paid, not out of profit, but out of capital. Some ReiJoHon
the affiiirs
of the statements in this report throw so much light on the history of the Com- of tiieoia pany that they deserve to be quoted. The original stock of the Compan}-, in "'"'""'-^ 1657, was £369,891, 5s. The aggregate dividends on this stock from October, 1661, to April 1, 1681, amounted to 390^ per cent., or about 19| per cent, per annum. On 2d November, 1681, their funds were so low that a call was made on the adventm'ers for the residue of their .subscriptions ; and yet, on the 18th of January thereafter, circumstances had so suddenly altered that the call was revoked, and instead of it, a dividend of 150 per cent, was declared. Of this dividend, however, only 50 per cent, was paid in money, while the remaining 100 per cent, was retained, and held to be equivalent to a duplication of the original stock, which was accordingly henceforth stated at double its original amount. On this doubled stock dividends had been regularly paid at the rate of 25 per cent. These dividends were always made on the arrival of ships on general computations without the help of the books, or a minute statement of the whole account ; and hence, even at the time of making them, the Company were hampered by a large debt, which in 1680 exceeded £500,000, and in 1698 amounted on bond alone to £631,554', lOs., exclusive of debts in India to an amount which could not be specified. In 1693, in fulfilment of the con- ditions of the charter granted them in that year, they opened a new subscrip- tion, and received under it £7-i4,000. The only legitimate purpose to which this sum could have been applied was that expressly specified in the charter, viz., to raise the stock of the Company to £1,500,000. The parliamentary committee, after failing to obtain a distinct an.swer as to the manner in which this sum had been disposed of, consulted the Company's cash-book, and ascer- tained that a large portion of it had been squandered in the system of bribery which has already been exposed, and that of the remainder no less than £325,565, Os. 4:d. had been repaid (on what ground is not explained) to the old adventurei's. This report, given in at the very time when the Company were maintaining a desperate struggle for existence, must have told fearfully against them.
The act which founded the new East India Company ranks as 9 Wm. III. Actofi«r- c. 44, and is entitled, "An act for raising a sum not exceeding £2,000,000, upon csuHi'shing a fund for papuent of annuities, after the rate of £8 per centum per annum, and ^J,'*" "^"^ for settling the trade to the East Indies." It is of great length, and is entirely
