CHAr. ITI.^ MADRAS RAISED TO A PRESIDENCY. 277
for not lending the whole sum ; und proposed to receive £35, QUO in hand, and a u 1054. to express their gratitude to the Protector by lending him the remaining £50,000, on the understanding that it was to be repaid in eighteen months by instalments. The final apportionment of the sum among the claimants was left to the decision of five arbitere specially appointed for that purpose.
After the arrangement made with Courten's association, the Company Privileges
ol.taimil ill
began to trade on what was called a united joint stock ; and while contendmg lici.gai. with many difiiculties, made some arrangements which ccmtributed greatly to their ultimate prosperity. Among others may be mentioned, the oljtaining of a firman which, in retm-n for a payment of 3000 i-upees (£300), gave them the privilege of free trade in Bengal without payment of customs. These very favourable terms, which were obtained in 1651, they owed to the influence of ]Ir. Gabriel Boughton, who, when English surgeon to the factory at Surat, had gained the fiivour of Shah Jehan by the cure of one of his daughters, and at a later period resided in Bengal as the medical attendant of the governor. Prince Hhuja, Sliah Jehan's son. While new facilities for trade were thus opened up in Bengal, the Coromandel coast was not overlooked, and in 1654 the important step was taken of raising Fort St. George to the rank of a presidency. In the Madras
rai.seci to .1
use of these and similar advantages, the Company might soon have re})aired all i.resiuency. their disa.sters, and attained a higher prosperity than they had enjoyed at any former period. Unhappily new obstacles arose from within. The imion with Courten's association had never been cordial ; and the members of the latter, accustomed to much more freedom of action than the more regular management of the Company permitted, became loud in their complaints. When the union was formed, the mode of canying on the joint trade was left open for future arrangement. On this subject, the views of the Company and of the A.s.sada merchants were almost diametrically opposed. The Compaiiy, jealous of their privileges, and convinced that they could not maintain them without a joint stock, refused to carry on the trade on any other footing. The Assada merchants, on the contrary, while admitting that a company was necessary, insisted that it should be, not a joint stock, but a regulated company, in which the members should have liberty individually '• to employ their own stocks, servants, and shipping, in such way as they might conceive most to their own advantage." To jn-ocure an authoritative settlement of the im])ortant que.stion thus raised, both parties, in the end of 1654, ap})eared as petitioners before the comicil of state.
The Company, in their petition, repeated all the arguments which they had Arrange- been accustomed to urge in lavour ot a joint stock: their own experience nnourcf acquu-ed during a course of forty years — the formidable competition of the i_'omymi^'^ Portuguese and Dutch — the failure of isolated voyages, the expenses of equip- ment far exceeding the means of individual adventurers — the extent of territorv over which the trade extended, the factories of the Company l^eing actually situated "in the dominion.s of not less than fourteen sovereigns" — and, above
