184 THE COMPANY AND THE KING in prison for the piracy. Other of Courten's captains so outraged the Canton magistrates that the English were declared enemies of the Chinese Empire, and were to be for ever excluded from its ports. Projects by- interlopers for plantations in Madagascar and the Mau- THE OLD EAST INDIA HOUSE ON LEADENHALL STREET, 1726-1796. After an old drawing. ritius; armed settlements by Courten's agents on the Malabar coast; and their open hostility to the Com- pany's servants at Surat and elsewhere now become the staple of the India Office records. The Company's factors in the East vainly begged for orders as to whether they were to obey the charter of King James, or the letters of King Charles which the newcomers flourished in their faces.
