ABSTRACT
The trade in Indian cottons reached new heights after 1660, building on the periods of growth earlier in the century. The English East India Company now concentrated its focus on the Indian subcontinent and on the provision of cotton textiles for European and international buyers. Over the course of the seventeenth century trading factories were set up in Surat and Bombay on the west coast, Madras on the Coromandel Coast of the south-east, and Calcutta in north-east India, all major centres of cotton manufacturing. The East India Company gradually transformed markets, opening new avenues of commerce. The Company had hoped to find riches through the spice trade; however, the new focus on textiles brought serendipitous results. In 1664 a quarter of a million pieces of calico were imported into England, valued at 73 per cent of the Company’s annual trade - this volume of cottons matched earlier peaks of trade in the 1620s.
