The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.82

v4.c20.82

The English East India Company had established its first trade factory in India at Surat in 1612 and exchanged goods with Āgra and Delhi by the long and costly land route; it also had an agency at Masulipatam, a port then belonging to Qutb Shāh. In 1633 an English factory was opened at Balasore and another at Hariharpur (twenty-five miles south-east of Cuttack). In 1640, the foundations of Fort St George at Madras were laid, this being the first independent station of the English in India, though outside the Mughul empire. In 1651 they opened their first commercial house in Bengal, at Hooghly (twenty-four miles north of Calcutta). Their chief exports were saltpetre (from Bihār), silk and sugar. Prince Shujā‘, then governor of Bengal, granted a *nishān* (or prince’s order) by which the English were allowed to trade in Bengal on payment of 3000 rupees a year in lieu of all kinds of customs and dues (1652).