of a renewed interest in the history of India among the general public. For example, that most important work, Manucci's 'Storia do Mogor,' has achieved the honour of a popular edition. It is familiar to every student for the vivacity and charm with which it gives us a first-hand account of the strange world into which our predecessors wandered. Miss M. L. Irvine has now prepared a condensed edition in one volume, from which all the excrescences of the original have been pruned away, while all the more important passages have been preserved. The Pepys of Mogul India,' as she calls her author, has gained more than he has lost by the compression of his four volumes into one.*

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Lastly we come to the great work of Dr Scott. No student of economic history in general or of Anglo-Indian history in particular can afford to neglect this remarkable study of the joint-stock company. Dr Scott's conclusions are very different from those of Adam Smith; and he shows ample reason for traversing the statements of the Wealth of Nations.' For a period of over a century and a half before the South Sea catastrophe, the joint-stock system had done conspicuously good work for the country, as well as proving an advantageous method of private investment. The Muscovy Company had imported on a large scale the masts and cordage without which Elizabeth's fleets could not have put to sea. The 'Society of Mines Royal' worked copper which another 'society' converted into brass and bronze for ordnance. The buccaneering expeditions, including Drake's voyage round the world, were financed by joint-stock adventurers. Virginia and Massachusetts, the Bermudas and Hudson's Bay, were planted by joint-stock companies; while the African trade was at different periods opened up and developed by no less than six, one after the other. Dr Scott has dug deep into old records and forgotten pamphlets; he has recovered an astonishing number of facts, and has woven them together with great lucidity. But for our present purpose he has another remarkable

* The present writer has recently discovered a volume of the Mayor's Court records at Madras, which shows that Manucci was still alive in 1719, whereas it has been supposed that he died in 1717. In 1719, Manucci was, characteristically, suing a Mahomedan for his winnings at backgammon and for medicine supplied.

virtue. It has often happened that the East India Company has been studied in isolation, as though it had been a unique phenomenon-a process which necessarily produced misunderstandings. But Dr Scott shows us that Company surrounded by similar organisations that were endowed with similar privileges for the performance of similar functions; so that it assumes its true position as a natural and inevitable product of its age.

The East India trade, then, was conducted by a company with privileges similar to those enjoyed by the Muscovy or Virginia Company. If those who disobeyed the ordinances of the East India Company were liable to fines and imprisonment, so also were those who broke the rules of the Levant Company; and the Czar promised the Muscovy Company the use of his prisons and instruments of torture. Interloping vessels might be seized on the Guinea Coast as well as in the Indian seas. Powers of life and death were exercised not only by companies' servants at Bantam and Surat, but also by companies' servants at Jamestown and the Bermudas. If we look abroad, we see the same system at work, though in a more complete and logical form. The Dutch East India Company explicitly enjoyed legislative powers; its monopoly was more rigorously enforced than that of any English company; and the Governor-General with his Council at Batavia formed a supreme court of justice from which no appeal lay to any tribunal in the United Provinces. These extensive powers were bestowed, not by despotism in quest of affluence, but by the republican government of the States-General; not amidst an obscurantist or reactionary people, but amidst the great champions of liberty who in religious matters practised a toleration to be found nowhere else in Europe.

It was universally believed that remote foreign trade and colonial adventure could only be conducted by means of a privileged company empowered to coerce the refractory into obedience and to maintain permanent relations with sovereigns with whom the national power could not come into effective contact. And in fact there was no alternative. For various reasons, personal, political, and economic, national finances were too embarrassed throughout the 17th century for the State to undertake

any responsibilities which it could avoid. Charles II would not garrison even Tangier or Dunkirk; he made over St Helena and Bombay to the East India Company; would he have maintained Cape Coast Castle or Madras ? Similarly the Royal Navy, which could hardly keep the English seas clear of Barbary pirates, and had much ado, even under Cromwell, to hold its own against the Dutch, was absolutely incapable of policing the remoter seas. When we remember how uneasily the Englishmen of that day bore the pressure of taxation, it ceases to be surprising that merchants were empowered to protect themselves by the grant of privileges which also permitted special profits.

Such was the justification for the establishment of trading bodies able to protect themselves against external attack. Equally cogent arguments demanded the power to maintain internal order. Both among the colonists and among the employees sent out by trading or colonial companies there was a disorderly element. Gallants were sent to Virginia to escape a worse destiny. If a man is good for nothing,' said an English proverb, 'send him to the East Indies.' The Dutch declared that their service was recruited with libertines, vagabonds and rogues. Those who have supposed that these and similar statements are to be understood literally are certainly wrong. There is ample evidence to show that a large number of men went abroad, not because they were more immoral, but because they were more adventurous, of stouter fibre and greater capacity than their fellows. But there was a residuum of brawlers and rufflers, who looked to find an enlarged Alsatia overseas, and who needed the sharp penalties and informal procedure of the law martial to keep them in order.

An open trade under the protection and justice of the State being impossible, the great problem was how the privileged companies should be organised. There were two alternative forms-the regulated company and the joint-stock company. The first in many ways resembled the medieval guild, the second the medieval societas. Under the first, each member traded on his own account within the regulations established by the company; a common fund was raised by entrance fees and a levy upon the members' trade; and admission

was open to all who had served a suitable apprenticeship. Under the second, trade was collective; members did not, or at all events were not supposed to, trade separately; the company controlled all the funds, capital and profits; and admission was obtained by subscribing or purchasing stock. These two forms maintained a constant rivalry from the time of Elizabeth to the time of William III; but the joint-stock company proved to be decidedly the more efficient organisation. Operations could be larger and better combined; its command over the funds gave it much greater powers of action in an emergency; and it had much more control over the agents employed in the trade. These latter were a source of trouble to both kinds of company. The Joint-stock Muscovy Company underwent serious difficulties owing to their misconduct; but, Dr Scott tells us, these difficulties were not to be compared with what went on occasionally under the regulated Levant Company; and gradually the joint-stock companies learnt how to take advantage of their superior position.

In early times, privileged trading companies assumed the regulated form. The first joint-stock appears to have been that of the Muscovy Company, formed in 1553 under the cumbersome title of 'The Fellowship of English Merchants for the Discovery of New Trades.' The reasons for the adoption of a novel form are revealed in the name they adopted. A joint-stock had obvious advantages in so speculative a project; and after the company had established itself in Russia, the same form was retained because under the looser regulated system the indiscretion of a single trader might have imperilled the privileges granted by the Czar. The Levant Company, whose ships were in constant peril from Mediterranean pirates, was also organised for a while as a joint-stock. Similar reasons demanded that the East India Company should be organised in the same way.f

* This point is one of Dr Scott's numerous discoveries.

The East India Company has often been described as a regulated company for the first thirteen years of its existence. Ignorance of unpublished records may excuse earlier writers such as James Mill, but recent writers cannot plead that excuse. Even Sir William Hunter uses ambiguous language which suggests, if it does not positively contain, error. One of the earliest resolutions of the adventurers was that the India trade was Vol. 221.-No. 440. G

Many of the original subscribers were already familiar with this form of organisation. Some had been members of the Levant joint-stock, and others had speculated in the numerous buccaneering voyages that had been financed on the same basis.

But, though the East India Company traded as a joint-stock from its very inception, it was long before the advantages of uniting financial with its corporate continuity were perceived. Dr Scott justly observes that there were many companies under the single charter. Each of the separate voyages, under which the Company's earliest ventures were organised, was financially distinct from the rest. Even when that method was found inconvenient, stocks were established only for a term of years-the First Joint-Stock in 1613; the second in 1617; the third in 1632. Indeed, the idea of a permanent stock was not adopted till the reign of Charles II. Until 1662, dividends included the return of capital as well as the division of profits; so that, when the winding-up of a stock was imminent, the supply of funds depended on the success of a new subscription. This resulted in two grand defects. One was that it prohibited continuity of policy; the other that it entirely prevented the accumulation of reserves. The Dutch East India Company exhibited a much wiser financial policy. Its capital was not only much larger than that of the English Company but also permanent from the first; * so it ran no risk of a sudden lack of funds from inability to raise a new stock after paying off the old. Moreover, although its commerce appears to have been remarkably well managed, Dr Scott estimates that it paid away out of profits, between 1602 and 1617, 6 per cent. per annum less than the English Company. The difference is accounted for, not by less

too remote for anything but a joint and a vnyted stock' (Stevens' 'Dawn of Trade,' p. 8); and they never deviated from this resolve. Certain provisions, however, notably those regarding admission to the Company, resembled those of the regulated companies.

*It seems to have been expected on the establishment of the United Company that its capital would be returned every ten years and a new subscription raised; but this expectation was never realised. Van Brakel : 'De Hollandsche Handels-Compagnieën,' p. 50. The work just quoted contains a very valuable exposition of the economic aspects of the Dutch companies in the 17th century.