Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/292

232 THE FIRST ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY queen, its power to grant licenses of internal trade to outsiders, and to discipline by fine or imprisonment its own members and servants for breaches of its by-laws. The charter ignores the Spanish claims, founded on the Bull of 1493, but respects rights derived from actual possession the position taken by the adventurers in the previous year. These powers, as against third parties, foreign or domestic, were supplemented by considerable privileges as against the crown. The queen, considering the haz- ards of an untried trade, and the company's ignorance as to what English goods would be vendible in India, exempted from export duties the outward cargoes of the first four voyages, and allowed six to twelve months' credit for the payment of the customs on their home- ward freights. Indian goods brought by the company might, after once paying the import duty, be re-exported without further dues. For the first voyage the com- pany might export Spanish or other foreign silver coin and plate to the amount of 30,000, but in the case of subsequent voyages the company must reimport within six months the equivalent of the silver exported by it. As the nature of the voyage compelled the ships to start at a particular season of the year, the charter provided that, even " in any time of restraint," the company should be empowered to send forth annually " six good ships and six good pinnaces well furnished with ordnance and other munition for their defence, and five hundred mariners, English men," unless the queen required them for her own service. If the trade