fifths of the price at which it had sold eleven years before. At length in 1631, anew stock of 420,000l. was raised with great difficulty. But, while they were still struggling with inadequate means and with the hostility of the Dutch and Portuguese abroad, they were suddenly involved in still more serious embarrassments by a flagrant violation of their charter on the part of the king, who in December, 1635, granted a new charter to Sir William Courten and others to trade for five years to Goa, Malabar, China, and Japan. Under this authority Courten and his associates the next year fitted out and dispatched some ships on an adventure, in the course of which they became embroiled first with the Mogul, and then with the Chinese; the former of whom made reprisals upon the property of the original company, while the latter declared the English, with whom they were now brought into contact for the first time, to be the enemies of the empire, and as such to be for ever excluded from its ports. By these and other proceedings, it was estimated that this new company, whose charter was confirmed and extended by the king in 1637, had injured the old company to the amount of fully 100,000l. before it was dissolved in 1646, by which time it had also, according to their own account, occasioned a loss to Courten and his associates of above 150,000l.
The Turkey Company is the next that Roberts notices. Of this body he says, "Not yearly, but monthly, nay, almost weekly, their ships are observed to go to and fro, exporting hence the cloths of Suffolk, Gloucester, Worcester, and Coventry, dyed and dressed, kerseys of Hampshire and York, lead, tin, and a great quantity of the abovesaid India spices, indigo, and calicoes; and in return thereof import from Turkey the raw silks of Persia, Damasco, Tripoly, &c.: galls of Mosolo and Toccat; chamlcts, grograms, and mohairs of Angora; cottons and cotton-yarn of Cyprus and Smyrna, and some-times the gems of India, and drugs of Egypt and Arabia, the muscadins of Candia, the corance (currants) and oils of Zante, Cephalonia, and Morea, with sundry others." The mention of cotton by Roberts in these accounts of
