commerce, whom we have chiefly followed in this summary, will explain the state of its establishments abroad at the close of the present period. "In the infancy of the company's commerce, Bantam was the chief factory, to which all the others were subordinate; and so they continued till the year 1638 or 1639, when Surat became the chief establishment, and the factories of Bantam, Fort St. George (or Madras), Hooghly in Bengal, and those in Persia, were made subordinate to it. In the year 1660 the company sent out orders to give up the inland factories of Agra and Amadavad, as also Mocha in the Red Sea, and Bussorah at the head of the Persian Gulf. Their port of Gombroon being of doubtful utility, it was referred to further consideration whether it should be kept up or abandoned. It was determined to retain Carwar, Calavella, Rajapore, and Scindy as long as the customs in Persia should continue to be paid; and these factories were made subordinate to Surat, The factories on the coast of Coromandel and in the Bay of Bengal were put under one agent at Fort St. George (or Madras), who was directed to use his best endeavours to obtain a settlement in Ceylon."[1]
The trade in woollens with the Netherlands and Germany, carried on, as heretofore, by the company of Merchant Adventurers, continued in a very prosperous condition during all the time of the Commonwealth. In 1647 the company removed their comptoir, or foreign residence, from Delft to Dort, and here they remained, notwithstanding repeated invitations from the magistrates of Bruges to return to that city, in which they had originally fixed themselves, till about the year 1651, when they began to remove to Hamburgh, which soon after became the sole staple for the English woollen trade. An ordinance of the Lords and Commons in 1643 granted a new and more ample charter to the Levant Company, "which," said the ordinance, "beside the building and maintaining of divers great ships, and the venting of kerseys, sayes, perpetuanos, and several
- ↑ Macpherson, Hist, of European Com. with India, p. 125.
