December 31, 1600

East India Company

Elizabeth I incorporates the English East India Company

An unlicensed English trader caught east of the Cape risked losing ship and cargo, with the forfeiture split between Crown and company.

New Year's Eve, 1600

On 31 December 1600 Elizabeth I issued letters patent incorporating the Earl of Cumberland and 215 others as the 'Governor and Company of Merchants of London, trading into the East-Indies.' The charter named Thomas Smith — generally rendered Thomas Smythe — as the corporation's first governor.

England was still on the Julian calendar, and histories conventionally keep the contemporary English date rather than converting it.

The terms of the monopoly

The corporation received a 15-year exclusive privilege over English trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan — with an exception for possessions of friendly Christian rulers, unless those rulers consented.

Management sat with a governor and 24 annually chosen 'committees.' Unlicensed English traders in the company's zone faced loss of ship and cargo, imprisonment, or other punishment, and the charter could authorize six ships, six pinnaces, and 500 English mariners each year even during a national shipping restraint, unless the Crown needed them.

A company, not an empire

Nothing in the document gave England territory in India. What the petitioners gained was a legally perpetual corporate body with governance rules and an enforceable English monopoly; the first chartered fleet still had to be organized and sent.

The original letters patent are lost. What survives is a contemporary copy of 15 folios in the British Library, dated 31 December 1600 — as are the printed charter and mainstream scholarship, against a higher-level catalogue narrative that says 30 December.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

The British Library’s individual record for the surviving contemporary copy dates it 31 December 1600, as do the printed charter and mainstream scholarship. A higher-level British Library catalogue narrative says 30 December, apparently a catalogue inconsistency.
England still used the Julian calendar. Histories conventionally retain the contemporary English date, 31 December 1600, rather than silently converting it to a proleptic Gregorian date.