258 APPENDIX I That fate was narrowly averted. In 1647, when the House of Lords rejected the " Ordinance for the Trade,' ' which the Commons had passed as a Parliamentary charter for the Company, the governor called together the shareholders. He explained to them that, while they had lost the privileges, they remained subject to the responsibilities of the royal grant. " Every man had liberty to go to India/ ' but the Indian princes held the Company " liable for what depredations " any Eng- lishman might there commit. In this way they had already lost £100,000, besides another £100,000 from Courten's trading. Courten's Association, having reached the end of its resources, was carrying on busi- ness with counterfeit coin, pagodas, and reals, which it manufactured on a great scale at Madagascar, and so brought the English name into disgrace throughout the East. The Indian princes made the Company re- sponsible for this and similar offences. The governor advised the brethren, therefore, " to draw home their factors and estate/ ' and the Company decided to wind up the Fourth Joint Stock. " In regard to the troubles of the times," they abandoned the idea of forming a new Joint Stock, but in order that the trade might not be wholly lost, they decided to find money for another voyage. Cromwell viewed the India trade from a national standpoint, and regarded the Company as one of several alternative methods for conducting it. When a pro- tracted inquiry convinced him that it was the method best suited to the times, he strongly supported it. But
