68 CONSOLIDATION OF THE ENGLISH COMPANY

vention in 1702, just before the great war of the Span- ish succession began, and immediately after the acces- sion of Queen .Anne. The effect of this measure was to concentrate all the enterprise, capital, and maritime experience of one powerful corporation upon the con- solidation of the English position in South Asia. The East India Company, by whom our Indian af- fairs were administered for the next one hundred fifty- five years, were now backed by the most opulent city and the largest seafaring population in the world, by the favour of the English government, to whom they made liberal advances, and by the increasing influence of the commercial classes upon the politics of the coun- try. With these advantages, with a secure base and headquarters at home, with fortified settlements and armed shipping abroad, with a charter authorizing them to raise troops and to make war and peace in India, the Company were already capable of defending them- selves, and even of pushing forward their outposts against any opposition that could be made by the vice- roys of a distracted Oriental empire. The history of Venice and Genoa had already shown what might be achieved by the power of armed com- merce in the hands of small communities greatly supe- rior in wealth and civilization to their neighbours. These towns had grown into independent States by successful monopoly of the Asiatic trade in the Euro- pean waters; they were originally no stronger than a chartered English Company of the seventeenth century. The decadence of the Byzantine empire enabled the