The East India Company

In 1500, England was a small country that did not count for much. By 1750, Britain (made up of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland) was a great power - one of Europe's leading states. This change took place because Britain grew rich from trade.

In the time of the Tudors, England's main trade was selling woollen cloth to Antwerp in the Low Countries (now Belgium). But the Low Countries belonged to the king of Spain. And when Queen Elizabeth I fell out with King Philip of Spain, he banned the English from Antwerp.

The merchants searched for new markets. Some sailed to Russia, and others to Turkey. In 1600, trade began with India. A group of London merchants started the East India Company. Their money paid for the ships and the crews. It was their gold and silver which the ships carried on the outward journey. They paid for the trading stations which Indian rulers allowed them to set up in certain ports.

The risks were great - many a ship was lost in a storm or taken by pirates. Sometimes there was a fight at sea with the French or Dutch. But when a ship did come home, laden with Indian silks and cottons (and later China tea), the merchants got the profits. A successful voyage would pay their costs five times over.

Walter Robson: Crown, Parliament and People; Oxford University Press, 1992/2002, page 69