foundations of so much of England's greatness. The seed from which the tree sprang was as a grain of mustard-seed. The success of the Portuguese in their commerce with the East had roused the envy of the merchants of London. Ralph Fitch, with five others, started overland on an expedition to India to gather information as to the value of trade with that country. He carried letters of introduction from the Queen to the Emperor Akbar, and returned, after travelling through Hindustan, with a knowledge of the possibilities of Eastern commerce which satisfied the London merchants that money was to be made in it. The Queen, however, from motives of political caution, probably for fear of annoying Spain, would not sanction their modest proposal to equip three ships for the East. For the time the design had to be laid aside; but it was not forgotten. In 1599, more than ten years after Fitch's return, an association—a syndicate it would now be called—was formed, and capital subscribed for opening up trade with the East Indies; and in 1600 a charter was obtained from the Crown, giving the association a monopoly of commerce with the East for fifteen years if it should prove advantageous to the nation, but liable to cancelment at two years' notice if it should not answer that condition. The capital was a sum of £88,000—a sum that in these days, even allowing for the difference in the value of money, would be thought insufficient for the establishment of a few penny steamers on the Thames.
Such was the small origin of the East India Company, which in olden times tradition might have consecrated by some picturesque legend. The Company, since it acquired territorial sovereignty, had exercised its great powers with wisdom, justice, and consideration for the subject races committed to its charge. It was gradually brought under the control of the Crown, and when, in 1858, after the meeting of a portion of its native army, it was commanded by Parliament to hand over to Her Majesty Queen Victoria the dominion which it
