■WILLIAM AND MANY.

249

depended would have had the fate which about the same timebefell so many other charters. But while the interlopers were,at a distance of many thousands of miles, making war on theCompany in the name of the King, the Company and the Kinghad been reconciled. When the Oxford Parliament had beendissolved, when many signs indicated that a strong reaction infavour of prerogative was at hand, when all the corporationswhich had incurred the royal displeasure were beginning totremble for their franchises, a rapid and complete revolutiontook place at the India House. Child, who was then Governor,or, in the modern phrase, Chairman, separated himself fromhis old friends, excluded them from the direction, and negotiateda treaty of peace and. of close alliance with the Court.* It isnot improbable that the near connection into which he had justentered with the great Tory house of Beaufort may have hadsomething to do with this change in his politics. Papillon,Barnardistone, and their adherents, sold their stock: theirplaces in the committee were supplied by persons devoted toChild; and he was thenceforth the autocrat of the Company.The treasures of the Company were absolutely at his disposal.The most important papers of the Company were kept, not inthe muniment room of the office in Leadenhall Street, but in hisdesk at Wanstead. The boundless power which he exercisedat the India House enabled him to become a favourite at White-hall; and the favour which he enjoyed at Whitehall confirmedhis power at the India House. A present of ten thousandguineas was graciously received from him by Charles. Tenthousand more were accepted by James, who readily consentedto become a holder of stock. All who could help or hurt atCourt, ministers, mistresses, priests, were kept in good humourby presents of shawls and silks, birds’nests and atar of roses,

* Some Remarks on tlie Present State of the East India Company’sAffairs, 1600; Hamilton’s New Account of the East Indies.

CHAP.

XVIII.

] GDI.