erica and Muscovy." Which patent, and all the rights and
privileges annexed to it, was subsequently, for a valuable
consideration, assigned by Sir James Cunningham to the London East India
Company.[84]

[Footnote 84: Ann. &c. I. 192.--_Note_.]

It is quite unnecessary to extend this introductory view of the rise of
the India Company any farther, as our limits could not possibly admit
any satisfactory deduction of its history, any farther than is contained
in the following series of the _Early Voyages_, for which we are almost
entirely indebted to the Collection of Purchas. By this _first_ English
East India Company, with a capital or joint stock of about 70,000l. at
least for the _first_ voyage, were laid the stable foundations of that
immense superstructure of trade and dominion now held by the present
company. Their first joint stock did not exceed the average of 325l. or
330l. for each individual of 216 members, whose names are recorded in
the copy of the charter in _Purchas his Pilgrims_, already referred to.
Yet _one_ of these was disfranchised on the 6th July, 1661, not six
months after the establishment of the company, probably for not paying
up his subscription, as the charter grants power to disfranchise any one
who does not bring in his promised adventure.

The East India Company of Holland, the elder sister of that of England,
now a nonentity, though once the most extensive and most flourishing
commercial establishment that ever existed, long ago published, or
permitted to be published, a very extensive series of voyages of
commerce and discovery, called _Voyages which contributed to establish
the East India Company of the United Netherlands_. It were, perhaps,
worthy of the _Royal Merchants_ who constitute the _English East India
Company_, now the unrivalled possessors of the entire trade and
sovereignty of all India and its innumerable islands, to publish or
patronize a similar monument of its early exertions, difficulties, and
ultimate success.--E.

SECTION I.

_First Voyage of the English East India Company, in 1601, under the
Command of Captain James Lancaster_.[85]

INTRODUCTION.

From the historiographer of the company[86] we learn, that the period of
this voyage being estimated for twenty months, the charges of provisions
were calculated at L6,600 4:10: and the investment, exclusive of
bullion, at L4,545; consisting of iron and tin, wrought and unwrought,
lead, 80 pieces of broad cloth of a