dens, from 100 to 1,000 tons each. In 1631 a third joint stock company was formed, with a capital of 420,7001.; but it was not until the year 1641-2 that the first important settlement was made in India, by the erection of a fort at Madraspatam, which was called Fort St. George, and was afterwards erected into a presidency in 1653-4. The directors, like sir Thomas Roe, were at first opposed to making territorial acquisitions, but they soon abandoned that line of policy, and saw a goodly prospect tempting to the view' in establishing their power in India. A new East India company was formed in 1698, with a capital of two millions; but after a feeble government of four years, it was united with the old company, which took the name of The united company of merchants trading to the East Indies.' The business was now managed regularly at home, and in India there were three presidencies, at Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, all independent of each other, and accountable only to the government of England. Although the desire of the directors to acquire somewhat more than a commercial footing in India had long been apparent, yet so late as the year 1746 the territory belonging to the company at Madras, which for upwards of a century had been the principal settlement, extended only five miles along the shore, and did not exceed a mile in breadth. The number of English did not exceed three hundred persons, of whom two hundred were soldiers in the garrison. The French had by this time become very active in India, and not only seized on Calcutta, but excited a revolution in the Carnatic. Fortunately for the English East India company, colonel (afterwards lord) Clive was at that time in India, and although employed in a civil capacity, displayed talents which proved him qualified him for more important services. With a force of 200 Europeans and 300 Seapoys, he seized on Arcot, and defended it for fifty days against a force of 5,000 men. This extraordinary man effected a complete revolution in the affairs of the East India company;-had his measures not been as skilful as they were gigantic, their trade might have been annihilated. The territorial acquisitions of lord Clive were successively extended under the governments of Warren Hastings, the marquis of Cornwallis, and the marquis of Hastings, until they became that vast empire which at present constitutes the possession of the East India company in India. It The commerce of the East India company has kept pace with its territorial acquisitions. The imports have been continually augmenting, and the exports, since the trade to India was by the act of 1813 partially thrown open, have been singularly increased. appears by the parliamentary returns, that our exports in merchandize, which in 1815 only amounted to 870,1771., had in the year 1819 increased to 3,052,740l., but as the market was considerably overstocked, and the exports in the following year were not more than half that sum, the amount may not annually much exceed two millions. Independent of the commerce with their possessions in India, the company has an exclusive trade in tea with China, and all the islands and ports between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan. How much this branch of the trade has increased may be known from the circumstance, that the first order given by the East India company for tea was in 1677-8, when their agents were directed to send one hundred pounds weight only, and in 1814 the quantity consumed in England was nearly twenty-five millions of pounds weight, yielding a revenue to the government of upwards of four millions sterling! In Lime-street was formerly a mansion-house of the king's, called the king's Artirce, and on the west side of the same street, was another mansion, having a chapel on the south, and a garden on the west, belonging to the lord Nevill: which garden now forms the green-yard of Leadenhall. This house, in the ninth of Richard II. pertained to sir Simon Burley, and sir John Burley his brother; it was taken down afterwards, and the front new built of timber, by Hugh Offley, alderman. At the north-west corner of Lime-street, was (of old time)' one great messuage, called Benbridge's-inn: Raphe Holland, draper, about the year 1452, gave it to John Gill, master, and to the wardens and fraternity of taylors, and linen-armorers of St. John Baptist in London, and to their successors for ever. They did set up in place thereof a large frame of timber, containing in the high street one great house, and before it, to the corner of Lime-street, three other tenements, the corner house being the largest; and then down Lime-street divers proper tenements. All which the merchanttaylors in the reign of Edward VI. sold to Stephen Kirton, merchanttaylor and alderman.'* Adjoining this on the high-street was the lord Souch's messuage or tenement,in place whereof, Richard Wethel, merchant-taylor, built a fair house, with an nigh tower, the second in number, and first of timber, that ever I learned,' says Stow, to have been builded, to overlook neighbours in this city.' pa In this neighbourhood was also a large mansion, known by the name of the Green gate, and tenanted by Michael Pistoy, Lombard, who held it, with a tenement and nine shops, in the reign of Richard II., who in the 15th of his reign gave it to Roger Crophull and Tho. Bromeflete, esqrs. by the name of the Green gate, in the rish of St. Andrew upon Cornhill, in Lime-street ward; Philip Malpas, alderman, and one of the sheriffs, afterwards dwelled therein, and was there robbed and spoiled of his goods,' to a great value, by Jack Cade, and other rebels, in the year 1449. Afterwards, in the reign of Henry VII. it was seized into the king's hands. And then granted first unto John Alston, after that unto * Maitland, vol. ii, p. 1004 William de la Rivers, and subsequently by Henry VIII. to John Mutas, a Pickard, or Frenchman, who dwelt there, and harboured in his house many Frenchmen, that kalendred wolsteds, and did other things, contrary to the franchises of the citizens. Wherefore on evil May-day,* which was in the year 1517, the apprentices and others destroyed his house, and if they could have found Mutas, they would have murdered him. Sir Peter Mutas, his son, sold this house to David Woodrofe, alderman; whose son, sir Nicholas Woodrofe, alderman, sold it to John More, alderman, who next possessed it. In the year 1576, partly at the charges of the parish of St. A drew, and partly at the charges of the chamber of London, a waterpump was raised in this high street of Lime-street ward, near unto Lime-street corner. For the placing of which pump, having broken up the ground, they were forced to dig more than two fathom deep, before they came to any main ground. Where they found a hearth made of Roman tiles, every tile half a yard square, and about two inches thick: they found coal lying there also. Then digging one fathom into the main, they found water sufficient and set up the pump. On the west side of St. Mary Axe, is the ward school of Cornhill and Lime-street. On the site of this school was formerly a church called St. Mary Pellyper, or by the Axe,† which formerly belonged to the Skinner's company. In the school room is the following inscription i Ecclesiæ et Reijus Seminaria In the room is also an old shield of arms in stone, displaying the following bearings: party per pale . . . and a saltire This parish, about the year 1565, was united to the parish church of St. Andrew Undershaft. counter changed. In the parish of St. Augustine in the Wall an earl of Oxford had his inn and the last will of Agnes lady Bardolph, in 1403, was dated from hence, in these words; Hospitio, &c. from the inn of the habitation of the lord, the earl of Oxenford, in the parish of St. Augustines de Papey, London. CHAPTER XXII. History and Topography of Portsoken Ward. PORTSOKEN WARD lies wholly without the city, properly so called, but includes an extensive plot of ground, extending from + Vide ante, p. 90. ⚫ Vide ante, vol i. p. 202. Aldgate to Whitechapel Bars, eastward, and from Bishopsgate to the river Thames, north and south. This Portsoken, says Stow which soundeth as much as the Franchise at the Gate,' was some time a guild, and had this beginning as I have read in the Liber Trinitate. In the daies of king Edgar, more than 600 yeres since, there were thirteen knights, or soldiers, well-beloved of the king and realm (for service by them done) which requested to have a certain portion of land on the east part of the citie, left desolate and forsaken by the inhabitants, by reason of too much servitude. They besought the king to have this land, with the liberty of a guild for ever, and the king granted their request, on condition that each knight should victoriously accomplish three combats, one above the ground, one under ground, and the thirde in the water; and after this, at a certain day in East Smithfield, they should run with spears against all commers; all which was gloriously performed; and the same day the king named it Knighten Guilde, and so bounded it from Ealdgate to the place where the bars now are toward the east, &c. and again toward the south unto the river of Thames, and so far into the water, as a horseman entering the same may ryde at a low water, and throw his speare; so that all East Smithfield, with the right part of the street that goeth to Dodding Pond into the Thames, and also the hospital of St. Katherin's, with the mils that were founded in king Stephen's daies, and the outward stone wall, and the new ditch of the Tower, are of the saide fee and libertie.—These knights had as then none other charter until the time of Edward the Confessor, whom the heirs of those knights humblie besought to confirm their liberties, which he did by a deed, written in the Saxon letter and tongue, as appeareth in the booke of the late house of the Holie Trinitie.'* Edward's grant was confirmed by William Rufus and Henry the First, in the latter of whose reign (in 1115), the entire Soke, and its appurtenances, were given by the then brethren of the guild, who are called burgesses of London, and whose names are recorded by Stow, to the church of the Holy Trinity within Aldgate, which had been recently founded by Matilda, Henry's queen. This gift was confirmed by a royal charter, and the deed granted by the Confessor, together with the other charters they had thereof,' was solemnly placed by the knights upon the altar in Trinity church, and full possession was afterwards given to the brotherhood of the Holy Trinity, of all the possessions of the guild, the final investiture being attended with much ceremony. The prior was also for him and his successors, admitted as one of the aldermen of London, to governe the same land and soke; and according to the customes of the citie, he did sit in court and rode with the maior, and his brethren the aldermen, as one of them in scarlet, or other livery, as they used, till the year 1531, when the priory was sur Stow's Lond. pp. 85, 86, Edit, 1597. + Ibid. Stow's Lond. p. 88, Edit. 1597. rendered to Henry VIII. Since that period, this ward has been governed in a similar manner to the other parts of the city, viz. by an alderman and five common councilmen. It is bounded on the east by the parishes of Spitalfields, Stepney, and St. George's in the east; on the south by Tower-hill; on the north by Bishopsgate ward, and on the west by Aldgate ward. This ward is divided into the five precincts of Houndsditch, Highstreet, the Bars, Tower-hill, and Convent-garden, and contains one church, St. Botolph without Aldgate. This church is situated in a spacious burying ground, occupying the angle formed by the junction of Houndsditch with Aldgate high-street. It is an ancient foundation, anterior to the year 1115, when the rectory of this parish was appropriated to the prior and convent of Holy Trinity; and at the dissolution of that priory, it was seized by the crown, and given by queen Elizabeth, for a term of years, to Robert Holliwell, and at the expiration of that term, king James 1. granted the said impropriation to Francis Morrice, from whom it has passed to the family of Kynaston. The old church was taken down in 1741, and the present edifice was finished in 1744. The plan is a square, having four piers set in the same form in the centre of the area, and a square tower flanked by vestibules attached to the principal front. The situation of the church differs from the usual arrangement, the altar being at the north side of the building, and the entrance at the southern. It is a spacious structure of brick, with stone dressings, the angles being rusticated. The tower occupies the centre of the principal front, it rises from the ground in four stories, square in plan, the first has an arched door on the ground floor, with a circular window above it, over which is a pediment; the two succeeding stories are low, and have merely apertures for admitting light to the interior; the fourth story, which is clear of the church, has an arched window in each face; the angles coined with stone; the succeeding portion is entirely built of stone, it consists of an octangular basement, having dials in the four faces, which correspond with the sides of the tower, the whole being surmounted by a spire of the same form, ending in a vane; each alternate face is pierced with three circular apertures. The vestibules attached to the sides of the tower have doorways with pediments, surmounted by circular windows in the principal fronts, and low arched windows, also surmounted by circles in the flanks; the roof of each is in the form of a small dome, covered with lead, and above the whole the wall of the church rises pedimentally. The west front is in two stories; in the lower is a triple arched window in the centre, which appears to have been intended in part for a doorway, between two low arched windows; the upper story has a large Venetian in the centre, be |