About the middle of King William’s reign it was generally said their patent was illegal, and that the Crown could not restrain the English merchants from trading to any country they were disposed to deal with; and application being made to Parliament for leave to lay the trade open, the ministry took the hint, and procured an Act of Parliament (9 and 10 William III., cap. 44) empowering every subject of England to trade to India who should raise a sum of money for the supply of the Government in proportion to the sum he should advance, and each subscriber was to have an annuity after the rate of 8 per cent. per annum, to commence from Michaelmas, 1698. And his Majesty was empowered to incorporate the subscribers, as he afterwards did, and they were usually called the New East India Company, the old company being allowed a certain time to withdraw their effects. But the old company being masters of all the towns and forts belonging to the English on the coast of India, and their members having subscribed such considerable sums towards the two millions intended to be raised, that they could not be excluded from the trade, the new company found it necessary to unite with the old company, and to trade with one joint stock, and have ever since been styled “The United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies.” The company have a governor, deputy-governor, and twenty-four assistants or directors, elected annually in April. The East India Company export great quantities of bullion, lead, English cloth, and some other goods, the product or manufacture of that kingdom, and import from China and India tea, china ware, cabinets, raw and wrought silks, coffee, muslins, calicoes, and other goods. Bengal raw silk is bought at very low prices there, and is very useful in carrying on the manufactures of this kingdom. China silk is of excellent staple, and comes at little above one-third of the price of Italian Piedmont silk. The China silk is purchased at Canton, but their fine silk is made in the provinces of Nankin and Chekiam, where their fine manufactures are carried on, and where prodigious quantities of raw silk are made, and the best in all China. The Royal African Company was incorporated 14 Charles II., and empowered to trade from Sallee, in South Barbary, to the Cape of Good Hope, being all the western coast of Africa. It carries no money out, and not only supplies the English plantations with servants, but brings in a great deal of bullion for those that are sold to the Spanish West Indies, besides gold dust and other commodities, as red wood, elephants’ teeth, Guinea grain, &c., some of which are re-exported. The supplying the plantations with negroes is of that extraordinary advantage, that the planting sugar and tobacco and carrying on trade there could not be supported without them; which plantations are the great causes of the increase of the riches of the kingdom.