quantity so large that it glutted the market, so that in the six following years their importations in all amounted only to 410 pounds. It was not, therefore, till after the Revolution that the consumption of tea began to be at all general in this country.[1]
St. Helena, the possession of which had been confirmed to the Company by their last charter, was taken by the Dutch in 1665, but was regained in 1672, and the following year re-granted by the Crown to the Company for ever. On the 5th of October, 1677, they also obtained a new charter from Charles II., empowering them, among other privileges, to coin money at Bombay and their other possessions in India. In 1680 the first notice occurs of a ship sent by the Company to China. In 1683 they lost their factory at Bantam in the island of Java, one of their oldest and best establishments, in consequence of having taken the unsuccessful side in a quarrel between the king and his son, the latter of whom was assisted by the Dutch, who, on their victory, obtained possession of the factory, which, with the exception of a few years during the last war, they have continued to hold ever since. On this the English established a new factory, which they fortified at a great expense, at Bencoolen, near the southern extremity of Sumatra,—by this means preserving the pepper trade, which would otherwise have all fallen into the hands of the Dutch. On the 3rd of August, 1683, Charles II. granted the Company another charter, conferring upon them some new powers, in particular the right of exercising martial law in their garrisons in India, and of establishing courts for the trial of crimes committed on the seas within the limits of their trade. They afterwards obtained another charter, still further enlarging their privileges, from James II., on the 12th of April, 1686. In India, in the meanwhile, they had become involved in a quarrel with the Nabob of Bengal, within whose government they had had a flourishing factory at Hooghly, a town on the west branch of the Ganges, and the chief port of the province; the result of which was,
- ↑ Macpherson, Com. with India, pp. 128–132.
