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==The Company==
==The Company==
Founded in [[1600]] by 101 English subscribers who pooled their funds into a joint-stock company (in which each owned equal shares of the capital), the EIC was soon afterwards granted a royal charter granting it a monopoly on importing goods from the East Indies. Initially at least it claimed only one-tenth the capital of the Dutch East India Company, which was based at Amsterdam, a far more active center of banking and mercantile activity. The EIC moved into the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf and soon displaced Portuguese agents as the dominant European powers there. The Company traded chiefly in [[indigo]], [[saltpeter]], [[pepper]], and [[cotton]] textiles. By the end of the 17th century, it had acquired control of ports on both coasts of India, including Fort St. George (Madras, 1639), Bombay (1661), and Calcutta (1690).<ref>Robert Tignor, [[Benjamin Elman]], et al, ''Worlds Together, Worlds Apart'', vol B, Fourth Edition, W.W. Norton & Co (2014), 473, 495.</ref>
Founded in [[1600]] by 101 English subscribers who pooled their funds into a joint-stock company (in which each owned equal shares of the capital), the EIC was soon afterwards granted a royal charter granting it a monopoly on importing goods from the East Indies. Like the Dutch East India Company which would be founded two years later, the EIC was granted a monopoly on all trade “East of the Cape of Good Hope but also in and beyond the straits of Magellan,” and (so far as English authorities had power to enforce it) access to all “Islands, Ports, Havens, Cities, Creeks, Towns, and Places” in that vast region; though they faced competition from the Dutch, Portuguese, and various groups of Asian merchants, the EIC were to have no competition from other English organizations. Also like the Dutch East India Company, the EIC was empowered to “make Peace or War with any Prince or People that are not Christians, in any Places of their Trade" - in other words, to engage in diplomatic and military actions as if they were a state unto themselves.<ref>Adam Clulow, “Like Lambs in Japan and Devils outside Their Land: Diplomacy, Violence, and Japanese Merchants in Southeast Asia,” ''Journal of World History'' 24:2 (2013), 352.</ref>
Initially at least it claimed only one-tenth the capital of the Dutch East India Company, which was based at Amsterdam, a far more active center of banking and mercantile activity. The EIC moved into the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf and soon displaced Portuguese agents as the dominant European powers there. The Company traded chiefly in [[indigo]], [[saltpeter]], [[pepper]], and [[cotton]] textiles. By the end of the 17th century, it had acquired control of ports on both coasts of India, including Fort St. George (Madras, 1639), Bombay (1661), and Calcutta (1690).<ref>Robert Tignor, [[Benjamin Elman]], et al, ''Worlds Together, Worlds Apart'', vol B, Fourth Edition, W.W. Norton & Co (2014), 473, 495.</ref>
The Company was headed at any given time by a board of 24 directors, elected annually from among those individuals who held at least £2000 in Company stock. All requests for employment, even for the lowest-ranking positions, went through this Board, and for most white-collar positions, one had to be nominated, and could not simply submit an application. Thus, gaining employment with the Company was largely a matter of personal networking. New employees had to pay a sizable bond, putting down £500 or £5000 (in the case of a factor), a means of ensuring one's good behavior; new employees, further, had to go through a three- or five-year probationary period of proving themselves before they would begin earning salary. Though salaries started quite low, they increased dramatically the longer one served the company, as did one's pension; after 10-20 years service, one could be earning a rather sizable annual pay. Further, employees were permitted to engage in their own personal, private, trade aboard Company ships, and otherwise using Company resources; this was an exceptionally significant aspect of the Company's operations, as it provided an incentive for people to seek employment with the Company, and to stay, and it provided an opportunity for an individual to become rather economically well-off, potentially from even just one successful deal.<ref name=ruggeri>Amanda Ruggeri, "The world's most powerful corporation," BBC, 30 March 2016.</ref>
East India Company headquarters and warehouses in London, as well as the Company's factories overseas, were impressive structures, and some quite lavish. The short-lived EIC factory at [[Hirado]], for example, included a garden with a ''koi'' pond, an orchard, and Japanese-style baths. The factories, as well as the London headquarters, all also incorporated extensive living spaces for the staff and their families. In the overseas factories, this was a matter of practicality, and of control, both providing the staff somewhere to live comfortably (according to English customs and desires), and limiting undesirable (e.g. violent) interactions with the locals.<ref name=ruggeri/>
The Company gained official permission to trade at [[Guangzhou|Canton]] in [[1699]], marking the beginning of its trade activities in mainland China. Though at first the Chinese insisted on silver and gold as payment, later on the EIC managed to substitute [[opium]], grown in Bengal and other regions controlled by the Company. This (in)famously led to considerable addiction problems in China, tensions between the Chinese and British Courts, and the eventual outbreak of the so-called [[Opium War]] in [[1840]].
The Company gained official permission to trade at [[Guangzhou|Canton]] in [[1699]], marking the beginning of its trade activities in mainland China. Though at first the Chinese insisted on silver and gold as payment, later on the EIC managed to substitute [[opium]], grown in Bengal and other regions controlled by the Company. This (in)famously led to considerable addiction problems in China, tensions between the Chinese and British Courts, and the eventual outbreak of the so-called [[Opium War]] in [[1840]].
The Company was disbanded in [[1857]], following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, after which India came under the direct control of the Crown.
A special training institute, the East India College, was established in [[1800]] to train new clerks in history, law, classics, and South Asian languages.<ref name=ruggeri/>
The Company was disbanded in [[1857]], following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, after which India came under the direct control of the Crown. The East India College closed the following year, but later reopened and the site continues to operate as an educational institution today, under the name Haileybury and Imperial Services College.<ref name=ruggeri/>
==In Japan==
==In Japan==