Ostend Company
The Imperial Ostend company ( Dutch Keizerlijke Oostendse Compagnie or Generale Keizerlijke Indische Compagnie ) was a trading company that was founded in December 1722 by the Habsburg Roman-German Emperor Charles VI. was founded for sea trade with the East Indies.
The history
The success of the Dutch, British and French East India Companies made the merchants and ship owners of Ostend , Antwerp and Ghent in the Austrian Netherlands desire to establish direct trade relations with the East Indies.
The trade of Ostende with Mocha , India , Bengal and China began in 1713. Private traders from Antwerp , Ghent and Ostend were charters for the India trade granted and this group entertained in since 1719 Kovilam a near Madras Faktorei and a pretty flourishing exchange of goods, because between 1713 and in 1723 34 ships sailed from Ostend to China, the Malabar or Coromandel coast , Surat , Bengal or Mocha . These expeditions were funded by various international syndicates made up of Flemish, English, Dutch and French merchants and bankers. The mutual rivalry between them, however, had a strong impact on profits and resulted in the establishment of the Ostend East India Company, which in December 1722 by Emperor Charles VI. has been officially approved. The company's capital was fixed at 6 million guilders , made up of 6,000 shares of 1,000 guilders each. The main part was borne by the wealthy citizens of Antwerp and Ghent. The directors were chosen from among the wealthy and capable merchants or bankers who had engaged in the private expeditions.
The time after the foundation
India
In December 1722 a ship was equipped and equipped with 70,000 Reichstalers. On the return journey in 1724, the expedition brought the previous resident in Kovilam, the Scotsman Alexander Hume , back to Ostend. The new resident was Andreas Cobbé , who however had local ships hijacked and thus provoked armed conflicts in which he was killed himself. Because of these events, Alexander Hume was again appointed resident and he returned to Bengal in 1726. Returning there, Hume tried to get the company approved by the local authorities, but was unsuccessful and adopted the same tactic as his predecessor, hijacking Indian vehicles. However, since he did this more tactically, he finally got local recognition from the local ruler and on July 5, 1727 permission to open a trading post in Bankibazar, but only after he had received quite a high payment from the Ostender. This idea was suggested to the ruler by the long-established VOC and the British EIC , who thus saw an opportunity to weaken the new competitor. The Ostend were indeed financially weakened by the payment, but still tried hard to keep the commercial activities going. To this end, they rented shipping space to private dealers and the EIC and traded with the Danish branch.
China
Trade with China was to become a second mainstay of the company, and contacts in this area also began before the company was founded.
An expedition by the Antwerp banker Paul-Jacques Cloots , which took place between December 1717 and the summer of 1719, was authorized by the Emperor to open a trading post in Canton for 127,000 Reichstaler.
Between 1724 and 1732 the company sent 21 ships, mainly to Canton and Bengal. Thanks to the rise in tea prices, big profits were made in the China trade . This was a thorn in the side of the older and rival companies such as the Northern Dutch VOC and especially the British EIC. They refused to recognize the right of the emperor to set up an East India company in the Austrian Netherlands and called the Ostenders invaders.
International political pressure was put on the Kaiser, to which he eventually gave in, as the Kaiser needed the help of the two naval powers, the Netherlands and England, in order not to become politically isolated in Europe, and he also wanted British recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction . In May 1727, the company's approval was suspended for seven years, and in March 1731 it was finally revoked by the second treaty of Vienna . A small number of illegal voyages under false flags were made between 1728 and 1731, but the last ships sailing for the company were the two ships the Company's Second Treaty of Vienna allowed.
Investors turned to Scandinavia or tried to continue doing business with Asia as private traders. The servants, such as the Antwerp Francois de Schonamille , successor to Hume in the office of governor, switched to the services of the EIC in 1730 and managed the trading post in Bankibazar until 1744.
See also
literature
- Jan van Dorp, Black Lion in the Golden Field, Paul List Verlag, 1952
- Heinrich Benedikt: When Belgium was Austrian . Herold, Vienna et al. 1965, p. 39-49 .
- Jürgen G. Nagel : The adventure of long-distance trading. The East India Companies. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2007, ISBN 978-3-534-18527-6 .
- Jan Parmentier: De Holle Compagnie. Smokkel en legal trade onder Zuidnederlandse vlag in Bengal, approx. 1720–1744. Lost, Hilversum 1992, ISBN 90-6550-111-8 ( Zeven Provinciën Reeks 4).
- Michael-W. Serruys: Oostende en de Generale Indian Company. De opbloei en neergang van een colonial handelshaven (1713–1740). In: Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis. 24, 1, 2005, ISSN 0167-9988 , pp. 43-59.
Web links
- The Ostend East-India Company (1722–1731) , on: Paulus Swaen, antiquarian maps and prints (with pictures)
Individual evidence
- ^ The Ostend East-India Company (1722-1731). Retrieved April 4, 2019 .