Coins In Lucknow Mus. Vol 01 [56 MB - IndianCoins.org

16Greenwich, on payment of the annual rent of 10 in gold on the30th September in each year."As regards the coinage of the Company during the reign ofCharles lII, Ruding says: The English merchants trading tothe East Indies did in this reign strike silver money in India forthe use of their factory at Bombaim, formerly a settlement of thePortuguese, but yielded up to his Majesty upon his marriage withthe Infanta of Portugal in 1662. I have not been able to discoverthe time when the licence to coin thismoney was granted to theCompany, but the earliest of the coins that are known bear dateof 1678." The earliest coins for the use of the East India Companywere either struck by our monarchs, or coined by their authority.Of the former kind were the portcullis pieces of Elizabeth in1600-1." In the reign of Charles II the Company began, by authorityfrom the Crown, to strike silver coins for the use of the factory atBombay. They were fanams and rupees,all of which bore eitherthe name, or some reference to the sovereign."Writing further concerning the early coinage of the Company,2 "Kuding says Soon after the East India Company obtained:territorial possessions in India, it began the exercise of that privilege,which in all countries, and in the East especially, hasbeen considered the right and proof of sovereignty the coiningof money. The circumstances of the Company's coinage were,however, as anomalous as those of the Company itself, which,although to a certain extent possessed of territory, was for a longtime obliged to conciliate the native princes, under whom mediatelyor immediately it held dominion, by professing to acknowledgetheir supremacy, whilst it still continued necessarilyincluded amongst the subjects of Great Britain. It thereforeadopted the policy of seeking the sanction of the Crown to itsestablishment of local mints ;and at the same time it fabricatedin these mints coins not in its own name in general, nor withEnglish legends and devices, but in imitation of the establishedcurrency of the country, with inscriptions in the Persian or othernative language, and in the name of the Emperor of Delhi, orsome other Indian prince. The coinage of money on its ownaccount appears to have commenced at Bombay, which islandwas held in more independence, at than first, any other landedpossession. Accordingly in 1671 the Court of Directors gaveinstructions to their servants at Bombay to establish a mint uponthe island, and a few years afterwards the measure was sanctionedby the Crown. A clause in the Charter granted in the 26th yearof the reign of Charles II, dated the 5th of October 1677, empowersthe East India Company to stamp and coin money atBombay, to be current wherever the Company's privilege oftrade in the East Indies extended, to be called by the name of1Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 18, and foot-note, p. 112.3Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 418.