Captain William Hawkins, leading the first voyage of the British East India Company to India, had sailed into the Gujarat port of Surat on August 24, 1608, carrying with him twenty-five thousand pieces of gold and a personal letter to the Mughal Emperor Jahangir from King James I seeking trade concessions.

He had persisted for over two years, however Portuguese pirates had stolen his gold, and had tried several times to murder him while on shore.

He had returned to England empty-handed.

The next envoy, Paul Canning, had lasted only a few months.

The Company had by 1611 managed to build its first factory (as the trading posts are known) in the town of Machilipatnam on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, the major port of Golconda kingdom.

This is one of the earliest known British settlements in the Indian subcontinent.

The high profits reported by the Company after landing in India (presumably owing to a reduction in overhead costs affected by the transit points), had initially prompted King James I to grant subsidiary licenses to other trading companies in England, but in 1609 he had renewed the charter given to the Company for an indefinite period, including a clause which specified that the charter would cease to be in force if the trade turned unprofitable for three consecutive years.