At the same time the court wished to 'encourage them in all good wayes', and for that purpose
We give you leave for the future to send us any intire Cargo of Chyna Goods proper for Europe Marketts of your own, or your own in company with any Natives or others, at the first cost in Chyna, to take your satisfaction there out of our Cash, when the Goods are shipt for England (but not before) that you may have your Stocks to goe on with again, on a new voyage, on this condic̃on, that if the said Chyna Cargoes of yours, &c, make not the said first cost here, free of single freight, and all charges, the adventure of the Sea from the Fort [Madras] hither, in such case shall be ours, but the loss at home, if any happen upon Sales, shall be yours. . . . And if any gain arise by such Chyna Goods here, 20 P Cent, of the profitt thereof shall be ours in considerac̃on of our running the hazard of the sea, generall charges of the Company, and disbursemt aforehand of our money in India; the rest of the gain justly, whatever it proves to be, shall be yours, and immediately returned you in Dollars, by the first Ship after the sale of such Chyna Goods here; this we say in times of Peace: but if a Dutch war should happen, we shall in time of such war, expect 40 P Cent, of the profitt to the Company for running the risque &c, as aforesaid. . . . The Company will sell the Goods here by the Candle.
This proposal seems sufficiently liberal, even in our eyes, unaccustomed as we are to all forms of private trade in competition with the trade of employers.
Some of the East India Company's ships belonged to themselves, while others were chartered, and the conditions under which the latter were managed were sometimes affected by the terms of the charterparty. The allowance for private trade made for the ship Eaton, chartered by the Company for China in 1699, and the limitations placed on it, may serve as an example of the privileges granted to such ships, over and above the remuneration to the supercargoes.[1]
Private Trade. The Court have allowed by the Charterparty £3500 to be sent out by the Owners, Master and Ship's Company of the Eaton; whereof £1500 may be carried out and brought home in such Commodities as they please, on condition that her Captain do not sell or buy in China without the Concurrence of the Factory. The remaining £2000 is [to be] sent out in Silver; and the Court permit the proceeds to be returned from China in Gold, or otherwise may be sent to Coromandel, consigned to some of the Company's Factors to be returned thence in Diamonds by a Company's Ship, the Proprietors paying what others pay.
Such generous terms were not always given to the owners of chartered ships, but the officers of all ships were treated at first in what seems to be a liberal fashion. In time this was found to work to the disadvantage of the Company, and this branch of the private trade was strictly regulated, until, by 1720, the captains and officers, who in 1714 had brought 20,000 lb. of tea
- ↑ Court to Council for China (going to Chusan), November 1699.
