266 APPENDIX I abortive action of Parliament in 1647. It counselled the Company to come to terms with Courten's Associa- tion, and it refused to interfere until they themselves arrived at a settlement. Both the rivals had reached the brink of ruin. Courten's Association, or the Assada Merchants as they were now called from their planta- tion on Assada Isle at Madagascar, were almost bank- rupt. We have seen them reduced to carrying on their trade by a manufacture of counterfeit coin, and they had offered to surrender their factories on the Indian coast to the Company's president at Surat, having offered him Karwar in 1645 - 1646 and Rajapur in 1649. In 1651, they made a similar offer of their Madagascar settlement, Assada itself. The East India Company, on its part, found it impossible either to raise a new Joint Stock or to go on with its old capital, and had to fall back on another " Particular Voyage." Indeed, in 1649, it passed a resolution of despair not to send out any more ships, either upon the Joint Stock or Separate Voyage system after April of that year. Yet only after long strife could the disputants come to terms. In 1649 they agreed that the two societies should work together as regards the general Indian trade; that Courten's Association should retain its Assada factory at Madagascar and have liberty to traf- fic thence to all Asiatic and African countries; while the port to port trade in India should be reserved to the Company. The business in gold and ivory on the coast of Guinea should be open to both. Their compact was embodied in a petition to Par-
