royal prerogative to create a monopoly of the Indian trade. The case was tried by Judge Jeffreys, who upheld the royal prerogative; but in spite of his decision the custom of interloping continued and laid the foundation of many great fortunes. By 1691 the interlopers had formed themselves into a new society, meeting at Dowgate, and rivalling the old company; the case was carried before the House of Commons, which declared in 1694 that “all the subjects of England have equal right to trade to the East Indies unless prohibited by act of parliament.” This decision led up to the act of 1698, which created a new East India Company in consideration of a loan of two millions to the state. The old company subscribed £315,000 and became the dominant factor in the new body; while at the same time it retained its charter for three years, its factories, forts and assured position in India. The rivalry between the two companies continued both in England and in India, until they were finally amalgamated by a tripartite indenture between the companies and Queen Anne (1702), which was ratified under the Godolphin Award (1708). Under this award the company was to lend the nation £3,200,000, and its exclusive privileges were to cease at three years’ notice after this amount had been repaid. But by this time the need for permanence in the Indian establishment began to be felt, while parliament would not relinquish its privilege of “milking” the company from time to time. In 1712 an act was passed continuing the privileges of the company even after their fund should be redeemed; in 1730 the charter was prolonged until 1766, and in 1742 the term was extended until 1783 in return for the loan of a million. This million was required for the war with France, which extended to India and involved the English and French companies there in long-drawn hostilities, in which the names of Dupleix and Clive became prominent.
So long as the company’s chief business was that of trade, it was left to manage its own affairs. The original charter of Elizabeth had placed its control in the hands of a governor and a committee of twenty-four, and this arrangement subsisted in essence down to the time of George III. The chairman and court of The company and the crown.directors in London exercised unchecked control over their servants in India. But after Clive’s brilliant victory at Plassey (1757) had made the company a ruling power in India, it was felt to be necessary that the British government should have some control over the territories thus acquired. Lord North’s Regulating Act (1773) raised the governor of Bengal—Warren Hastings—to the rank of governor-general, and provided that his nomination, though made by a court of directors, should in future be subject to the approval of the crown; in conjunction with a council of four, he was entrusted with the power of peace and war; a supreme court of judicature was established, to which the judges were appointed by the crown; and legislative power was conferred on the governor-general and his council. Next followed Pitt’s India Bill (1784), which created the board of control, as a department of the English government, to exercise political, military and financial superintendence over the British possessions in India. This bill first authorized the historic phrase “governor-general in council.” From this date the direction of Indian policy passed definitely from the company to the governor-general in India and the ministry in London. In 1813 Lord Liverpool passed a bill which further gave the board of control authority over the company’s commercial transactions, and abolished its monopoly of Indian trade, whilst leaving it the monopoly of the valuable trade with China, chiefly in tea. Finally, under Earl Grey’s act of 1833, the company was deprived of this monopoly also. Its property was then secured on the Indian possessions, and its annual dividends of ten guineas per £100 stock were made a charge upon the Indian revenue. Henceforward the East India Company ceased to be a trading concern and exercised only administrative functions. Such a position could not, in the nature of things, be permanent, and the great cataclysm of the Indian Mutiny was followed by the entire transference of Indian administration from the company to the crown, on the 2nd of August 1858.
See Purchas his Pilgrimes (ed. 1905), vols. 2, 3, 4, 5, for the charter of Elizabeth and the early voyages; Sir W. W. Hunter, History of British India (1899); Beckles Willson, Ledger and Sword (1903); Sir George Birdwood, Report on the Old Records of the India Office (1879); The East India Company’s First Letter Book (1895), Letters Received by the East India Company from its Servants in the East, ed. Foster, (1896 ff.). See also the interesting memorial volume Relics of the Honourable East India Company (ed. Griggs, 1909), letterpress by Sir G. Birdwood and W. Foster.
EAST INDIES, a name formerly applied vaguely, in its widest sense, to the whole area of India, Further India and the Malay Archipelago, in distinction from the West Indies, which, at the time of their discovery, were taken to be the extreme parts of the Indian region. The term “East Indies” is still sometimes applied to the Malay Archipelago (q.v.) alone, and the phrase “Dutch East Indies” is commonly used to denote the Dutch possessions which constitute the greater part of that archipelago. The Dutch themselves use the term Nederlandsch-Indië.
EASTLAKE, SIR CHARLES LOCK (1793–1865), English painter, was born on the 17th of November 1793 at Plymouth, where his father, a man of uncommon gifts but of indolent temperament, was solicitor to the admiralty and judge advocate of the admiralty court. Charles was educated (like Sir Joshua Reynolds) at the Plympton grammar-school, and in London at the Charterhouse. Towards 1809, partly through the influence of his fellow-Devonian Haydon, of whom he became a pupil, he determined to be a painter; he also studied in the Royal Academy school. In 1813 he exhibited in the British Institution his first picture, a work of considerable size, “Christ restoring life to the Daughter of Jairus.” In 1814 he was commissioned to copy some of the paintings collected by Napoleon in the Louvre; he returned to England in 1815, and practised portrait-painting at Plymouth. Here he saw Napoleon a captive on the “Bellerophon”; from a boat he made some sketches of the emperor, and he afterwards painted, from these sketches and from memory, a life-sized full-length portrait of him (with some of his officers) which was pronounced a good likeness; it belongs to the marquess of Lansdowne. In 1817 Eastlake went to Italy; in 1819 to Greece; in 1820 back to Italy, where he remained altogether fourteen years, chiefly in Rome and in Ferrara.
In 1827 he exhibited at the Royal Academy his picture of the Spartan Isidas, who (as narrated by Plutarch in the life of Agesilaus), rushing naked out of his bath, performed prodigies of valour against the Theban host. This was the first work that attracted much notice to the name of Eastlake, who in consequence obtained his election as A.R.A.; in 1830, when he returned to England, he was chosen R.A. In 1850 he succeeded Shee as president of the Royal Academy, and was knighted. Prior to this, in 1841, he had been appointed secretary to the royal commission for decorating the Houses of Parliament, and he retained this post until the commission was dissolved in 1862. In 1843 he was made keeper of the National Gallery, a post which he resigned in 1847 in consequence of an unfortunate purchase that roused much animadversion, a portrait erroneously ascribed to Holbein; in 1855, director of the same institution, with more extended powers. During his directorship he purchased for the gallery 155 pictures, mostly of the Italian schools. He became also a D.C.L. of Oxford, F.R.S., a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and member of various foreign academies.
In 1849 he married Miss Elizabeth Rigby, who had already then become known as a writer (Letters from the Baltic, 1841; Livonian Tales, 1846; The Jewess, 1848) and as a contributor to the Quarterly Review. Lady Eastlake (1809–1893) had for some years been interested in art subjects, and after her marriage she naturally devoted more attention to them, translating Waagen’s Treasures of Art in Great Britain (1854–1857), and completing Mrs Jameson’s History of our Lord in Works of Art. In 1865 Sir Charles Eastlake fell ill at Milan; and he died at Pisa on the 24th of December in the same year. Lady Eastlake, who survived him for many years, continued to play an active part as a writer on art (Five Great Painters, 1883, &c.), and had a large circle of friends among the most interesting men and women of the day. In 1880 she published a volume of Letters from France
