The company gained control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world by various measures and had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three presidency armies , totalling about , soldiers, twice the size of the British Army at certain times. Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies," [ 6 ] [ 7 ] the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mids and early s, [ 8 ] particularly in basic commodities including cotton , silk , indigo dye , sugar , salt , spices , saltpetre , tea , and later, opium.
The company also initiated the beginnings of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent. The company eventually came to rule large areas of the Indian subcontinent, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions.
Company-ruled areas in the region gradually expanded after the Battle of Plassey in and by most of modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh was either ruled by the company or princely states closely tied to it by treaty. The company subsequently experienced recurring problems with its finances, despite frequent government intervention. The company was dissolved in under the terms of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act enacted one year earlier, as the Government of India Act had by then rendered it vestigial, powerless, and obsolete.
The official government machinery of the British Empire had assumed its governmental functions and absorbed its armies. In , Francis Drake set out on an expedition from England to plunder Spanish settlements in South America in search of gold and silver. Sailing in the Golden Hind he achieved this, and then sailed across the Pacific Ocean in , known then only to the Spanish and Portuguese.
In exchange for linen, gold, and silver, the English obtained a large haul of exotic spices, including cloves and nutmeg.
