THE COMPANY AND PARLIAMENT 189 of its royal charter. The Commons, after a good deal of money had been spent, agreed, and gave Courten three years to withdraw from India. But the House of Lords rejected the bill, in spite of the report of their own committee in its favour. The Company was at the end of its resources, and a new joint stock could not be raised. In 1646 the governor, in despair, advised the shareholders to " draw home their factors and estate," yet the court determined to go on for another year. In 1648 it resolved to abolish seven of its Indian fac- tories. The Company was a loyal body, but Charles wore out its loyalty. The fines and sequestrations afterwards laid on its stubbornly royalist members by Parliament and the Commonwealth fill many documents. Indeed, the sole great act of betrayal perpetrated by a servant of the Company was committed in the king's cause. Captain Mucknell treacherously carried his ship into Bristol, then held for his Majesty, and made her over for the support of the war against Parliament at a loss of £20,000 to his masters. It was a useless crime, and only added resentment to the directors' distrust of the king. Whatever his Majesty might say, the Com- pany had always found that he left something unsaid, and that the royal prerogative, which he professed to exercise on its behalf, was at the secret service of its rivals. Yet if these records disclose Charles I in an unheroic light, they also enable us to understand how he salved his own conscience. The kings of Portugal and of Spain
