The earliest East India Company voyages concentrated on procuring and selling pepper from the islands of what is now Indonesia, where its adventurers faced strong opposition from the established Dutch. Each voyage during this period was an independent financial venture with its own commissions (see, for example, that to Sir Henry Middleton in 1610) and shareholders. Sir James Lancaster commanded the first voyage, which set out in 1601 and returned in 1603. In 1600 a group of London merchants secured a royal charter from Elizabeth I to enjoy the monopoly of trade from England to the Far East, forming the English East India Company.
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