Behind all the glamour and the glory, however, lies one of history's mischievous ironies. ... When the London merchants of what became the East India Company first sent ships to the East in 1601, they were not bound for India at all but for the Spice Islands of the Dutch East Indies, and the English traders who set foot on the subcontinent a little later actually sought to avoid conquest. ... By 1639, English traders were established on the east coast, too, leasing for 600 a year a harborless beach just five miles long and one mile wide, which they christened Fort St. ... Before long the ...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate