Ostend Company

The Imperial East Dische Company ( Dutch Keizerlijke Oostendse Compagnie ) was a trading company set up in December 1722 by the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. was established for maritime trade with the East Indies.

The history

The success of the Dutch, British and French East India Companies had at the merchants and ship owners of Ostend, Antwerp and Ghent arise in the Austrian Netherlands, the desire to establish direct trade relations with the East Indies.

The trade of Ostend with mocha, India, Bengal and China began 1713. Private dealers from Antwerp, Ghent and Ostend were charters for the East India trade granted and this group entertained since 1719 Kovilam at Madras a trading post and a pretty thriving trade in goods, because between 1713 1723 and sailed 34 ships from Ostend to China, the Malabar or Coromandel Coast, Surat, Bengal or mocha. These expeditions were financed by various international syndicates, which were made up of Flemish, English, Dutch and French merchants and bankers. However, mutual rivalry between them had a strong impact on the profits and resulted in the founding of Ostend East India Company, which in December 1722 by Emperor Charles VI. was officially approved. The capital of the company was fixed at 6 million guilders, composed of 6,000 shares to 1,000 guilders. The main part of was worn by the wealthy citizens of Antwerp and Ghent. The directors were elected from the rich and capable merchants or bankers, who had been engaged in the private expeditions.

The period after the founding

India

As late as December 1722 a ship was fitted and equipped with 70,000 rix-dollars. On the way back 1724, the expedition brought the previous residents in Kovilam, the Scots Alexander Hume, back to Ostend. New Resident was Andreas Cobbe, who had hijack foreign ships, however, and so provoked armed conflict, in which he himself was killed. Because of these incidents Alexander Hume was again intended for residents and in 1726 he returned back to Bengal. Returned there, Hume tried to approval of the company by the local authorities, but had no success and suggested the same tactics as its predecessor a by letting hijack Indian vehicles. As he was doing this, however tactically wiser, he was ultimately the local recognition by the local ruler, and on July 5, 1727 for permission to open a trading post in Bankibazar, but only after he had received a fairly high payment of Ostend. This idea was the ruler by the long-established VOC and the British E.I.C. suggested, which thus saw an opportunity to weaken the new competitor. The Ostend had been weakened financially by paying, in fact, but endeavored still to maintain commercial activities. They leased to ship about to private traders and the EIC and negotiated with the Danish subsidiary.

China

A second pillar of the company should be trading with China and also in the area increased the contacts before the foundation of the company began.

An expedition of the Antwerp banker Paul -Jacques Cloots, which was held between December 1717 and the summer of 1719 authorized by the Emperor to open a trading post for 127,000 thalers in the canton.

Between 1724 and 1732 21 ships of the company were sent 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 North Dutch VOC and especially the British EIC. they refused to recognize the right of the emperor to establish a East India Company in the Austrian Netherlands and the Ostend designated as intruders.

International political pressure was applied to the Emperor, to whom he finally gave in, since the emperor the help of the two maritime powers, the Netherlands and England needed to be politically in Europe is not isolated, and he also wanted the British recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction. In May 1727 approval of the company for seven years has been exposed, and finally released by the second Treaty of Vienna in March 1731. Between 1728 and 1731 a small number of illegal travel under false flags was made, but the last sailing for the company ships were the two ships, which conceded the second Treaty of Vienna of the company.

Investors oriented themselves to Scandinavia or tried to continue to make as a private dealer business with Asia. The staff changed, such as the Antwerp Francois de Schonamille, Hume's successor in the office of Governor, 1730 in the service of the EIC and headed for this factory at the Bankibazar until 1744.