Out of the body of Directors are chosen several committees, who have the peculiar inspection of separate branches of the company’s business; as the committee of buying, committee of correspondence, committee of accounts, committee of the treasury, a house committee, a warehouse committee, a committee of shipping, a committee to prevent the growth of private trade, and a committee of law suits.
The East India company export bullion to a very great value, with woollen cloth, lead, and some other English commodities; and import China ware, tea, cabinets, raw and wrought silks, calicoes, chints, pepper, &c. but all the wrought silks, and calicoes, are to be exported again.
All the goods imported by the company are to be sold openly by inch of candle, on pain of forfeiting one half to the King, and the other to the prosecutor.
East India stock is esteemed in law, personal estate, and the shares exempt from taxes.
East India House.
S. Wale delin. B. Green sculp.
East India House, on the south side of Leadenhall street, and a little to the west of Lime street. This edifice was built on the place where anciently stood the city house of the Lord Craven, and his ancestors. The present structure was erected by the company in the year 1726. It is a plain Doric on a rustic basement, and has not much to be found fault with or commended. It might have been justly considered as a very fine edifice, had it been the house of a single Director; but it is not at all equal to the grandeur of this company, and the great figure they make in the trading world; nor bears any proportion to the idea we conceive of this body, when we consider, that the Directors who meet here, appoint or remove Governors who are their servants, and yet have all the dignity and state of Kings, some of whom seldom stir abroad without their guards and a numerous retinue, or eat, but upon gilt plate, or the finest China.
The house, however, though too small in front, extends far backwards, and is very spacious, having large rooms for the use of the Directors, and offices for the clerks. It has a spacious hall and court yard for the reception of those who have business, and who attend on the company on court days, which are every Wednesday. There also belongs to it a garden, with warehouses in the back part toward Lime street, to which there is a back gate for the entrance of carts to bring in goods. These warehouses were rebuilt in a very handsome manner in the year 1725, and are now greatly enlarged. The company have likewise warehouses in Seething lane, the Steel yard, and at the Royal Exchange, particularly under the last they have spacious cellars entirely for pepper. Stow, Maitland, &c.
Eastland Company. These merchants were first incorporated by a charter granted them by Queen Elizabeth in the year 1579, and their factory being first settled at Elbing in Prussia, they obtained the name of the merchants of Elbing. By their charter they were impowered to trade to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Prussia, and all the other parts of the Baltic, exclusive of the city of Narva, which had been previously granted to the Russia company; but the smallness of the river Elbing rendering it very incommodious for navigation, the factory removed, and settled at Dantzick, Koningsberg, Riga, and other cities of the Baltic.
This company was confirmed by a charter granted by King Charles II. but by a late act of parliament any persons are allowed to trade to Norway and Sweden, though not of this company: and the Eastland commerce in general is in a manner laid open.