220 THE FIKST ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY forts in the East, to appoint governors, and to make treaties with native princes in the name of the stadt- holder of Holland. I have passed on three years beyond the English proposals of 1599, in order to give a connected view of the constitution of the great rival com- pany with which the London adven- turers were des- tined from the date of their first actual voyage (1601-1603) to contend. The London merchants who met together under the lord mayor in Founders' Hall in September, 1599, had no such ambitious scheme of an official organ- ization in their minds. They sought a remedy for a block that had taken place in the Indian trade. Their Muscovy Company, dating from Queen Mary's charter in 1554, had failed to establish a direct overland com- merce with India, and even its dealings with Russia and northeastern Europe had of late dwindled away. Sir Walter Raleigh lamented that formerly " we sent store of goodly ships to trade in those parts, and three AN INDIAN PRINCE AND PRINCESS.
