. James ordered his seal to be put to a new
charter which confirmed and extended all the privileges bestowed on
the Company by his predecessors. All captains of Indiamen received
commissions from the Crown, and were permitted to hoist the royal
ensigns. [167] John Child, brother of Sir Josiah, and Governor of
Bombay, was created a baronet by the style of Sir John Child of Surat:
he was declared General of all the English forces in the East; and he
was authorised to assume the title of Excellency. The Company, on the
other hand, distinguished itself among many servile corporations by
obsequious homage to the throne, and set to all the merchants of the
kingdom the example of readily and even eagerly paying those customs
which James, at the commencement of his reign, exacted without the
authority of Parliament. [168]

It seemed that the private trade would now be utterly crushed, and that
the monopoly, protected by the whole strength of the royal prerogative,
would be more profitable than ever. But unfortunately just at this
moment a quarrel arose between the agents of the Company in India
and the Mogul Government. Where the fault lay is a question which was
vehemently disputed at the time, and which it is now impossible to
decide. The interlopers threw all the blame on the Company. The Governor
of Bombay, they affirmed, had always been grasping and violent; but his
baronetcy and his military commission had completely turned his head.
The very natives who were employed about the factory had noticed the
change, and had muttered, in their broken English, that there must be
some strange curse attending the word Excellency; for that, ever since
the chief of the strangers was called Excellency, every thing had gone
to ruin. Meanwhile, it was said, the brother in England had sanctioned
all the unjust and impolitic acts of the brother in India, till at
length insolence and rapine, disgraceful to the English nation and to
the Christian religion, had roused the just resentment of the native
authorities. The Company warmly recriminated. The story told at
the India House was that the quarrel was entirely the work of the
interlopers, who were now designated not only as interlopers but as
traitors. They had, it was alleged, by flattery, by presents, and by
false accusations, induced the viceroys of the Mogul to oppress and
persecute the body which in Asia represented the English Crown. And
indeed this charge seems not to have been alto