In 1775, the then 37-year-old Dutch-born British merchant William Bolts offered his services to the Habsburg monarchy government of Empress Maria Theresa, putting forward a proposal for establishing Austrian trade with Company-ruled India from the Adriatic port of Trieste in present-day Italy.
[4] His aim in establishing a factory at Delagoa Bay was to use it as a base for trade between East Africa and the West coast ports of India.
During his voyage out he obtained Brazilian cochineal beetles at Rio de Janeiro and transported them to Delagoa Bay, thereby predating the introduction to Bengal of this insect for the making of scarlet dyes and carmine.
[6] When it learned of Bolts’s venture, the British East India Company (EIC) instructed its officers in Bengal, Madras, and Bombay to “pursue the most effectual means that can be fully justified to counteract and defeat” him.
Bolts took full advantage of Austria’s neutral status in the war between Britain and France, Spain, and Holland (1778–1783) that formed part of the struggle for American independence.
In consequence of Bolts’s action, the Imperial company had established a trading factory on the island of Nancowery, headed by Gottfried Stahl who was accompanied by five other Europeans.
Proli also disagreed with Bolts over the importance of the China market: Proli wanted to concentrate exclusively on that market while Bolts urged the equal importance of India as Austrian commodities, such as mercury, lead, copper, iron, tin and vitriol, could find sale there, in contrast to China where only Spanish silver dollars were accepted in return for Chinese products such as tea, porcelain and silk.
[13] At an audience with Emperor Joseph II in Brussels on 28 July 1781, Bolt and Proli agreed to the transformation of their association into a share company, and in August Bolts surrendered his charters to the new Imperial Company of Trieste and Antwerp for the Commerce of Asia (Société Impériale pour le Commerce Asiatique de Trieste et d’Anvers).
[14] The Imperial Company of Trieste and Antwerp was opened to public subscription in August 1781 to raise, nominally, half its capital in one thousand shares.
It consequently suffered chronic lack of cash and had to resort to short term loans and bottomry bonds (for which the ships themselves were the collateral) at a premium of 30 to 35 per cent.
Attempting to seize the opportunity to make good profits, the Proli group sent five ships to Canton: the Croate, the Kollowrath, the Zinzendorff, the Archiduc Maximilien, and the Autrichien.
Disastrously, a sixth ship, the Belgioioso, carrying a large amount of silver specie for the purchase of Chinese goods, foundered in a storm in the Irish Sea soon after departing Liverpool, where she had fitted out for the voyage to Canton.
[22] The British merchants were mainly represented by the Brussels bankers, Charles Herries & Co. William Bolts’ company, referred to as the Société Triestine à Trieste, was apparently also connected with this group.