ABSTRACT
There was little to suggest the acquisition of dominion in India in the debut of the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies to whom Queen Elizabeth, after much hesitation, granted a charter of incorporation on December 31st 1600. The aims of the Company were essentially commercial. Both Muhammadan and Hindu law were definitely religious in origin and character and could not easily or with any justice be applied to European merchants, and the native princes had no interest in insisting on attempting to apply them. In its early days Bengal fell far short of Madras or Bombay in the character of its organization, executive and judicial alike. Over Indians the Company had acquired jurisdiction by the purchase of the three villages, Sutanati, Govindpur, and Calcutta, which gave it the rights of a zamindar.
