incorporated by Charles, on the 3rd of April, 1661, with a full confirmation of all their ancient privileges, and the important additional rights:—1. Of erecting so many forts as they pleased in India and St. Helena, and appointing judges to try both civil and criminal causes; 2. Of making peace and war with any people not Christians, within the limits of their trade; 3. Of seizing all English subjects found without their licence in India or in the Indian seas, and sending them home to England. In 1669 the island of Bombay, which Charles had received from Portugal as part of the dower of Queen Catherine, was made over by him to the Company, to be held by them "in free and common soccage, as of the manor of East Greenwich, at an annual rent of ten pounds." The trade of the Company now became so lucrative, that in 1676 they were enabled to double their capital out of their accumulated profits; on which the market price of their stock immediately rose to 245 per cent. A view of the state of the commerce with India about this time is very fully given in a publication which appeared in 1677 entitled "The East India Trade a most profitable Trade to this Kingdom," and which is supposed to have been written by Sir Josiah Child. The Company, this writer states, then employed from thirty to thirty-five ships, running from 300 to 600 tons burden, and carrying, or capable of carrying, from forty to sixty or seventy guns each. Their annual exports amounted to about 430,000l. ; namely, 320,000l. in bullion, and the remainder in cloth and other goods. Their imports in calico, pepper, saltpetre, indigo, silk (raw and wrought), drugs, &c., had in the year 1674-5 produced 860,000l., and often yielded a much larger sum. Besides this, the private trade allowed by the Company to owners of ships, commanders, and seamen, as well as to their own factors, for diamonds, pearls, musk, ambergris, &c., occasioned an annual export of from 80,000l. to 100,000l. in bullion, and about 40,000l. or 50,000l. in goods, and brought returns to the amount of 250,000l. or 300,000l. Of the 110,000l. worth of goods exported by the Company, 40,000l. or 50,000l. worth
