11 Facts About Maurice Abbot

Sir Maurice Abbot was an English merchant, Governor of the East India Company, and a politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1621 and 1626.

Maurice Abbot was one of the original directors of the East India Company, which was incorporated by royal charter in 1600, was among the earliest to invest large sums in its "stock", was a member of its special committee of direction from 1607 onwards, and was throughout his life foremost in defending its interests against its enemies at home and abroad.

Maurice Abbot became a member of the committee of the Virginia Company in 1610, and its auditor from 1619 to 1620.

In 1614, Maurice Abbot was one of the original Shareholders of the Somers Isles Company, which was formed by the shareholders of the Virginia Company to separately administer The Somers Isles.

Early in 1615 Maurice Abbot was one of the commissioners despatched to Holland to settle the disputes that were constantly arising between the Dutch East India Company and the East India Company as to their trading rights in the East Indies and their fishing rights in the north seas.

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Maurice Abbot recognised at once the necessity of "pressing the matter modestly", in order to avoid open war with Holland; but in repeated audiences with James I and in petitions and speeches to the privy council he insisted that demand should be made of the Dutch authorities to bring the perpetrators of the outrage to justice.

Maurice Abbot spoke of withdrawing from the trade altogether if this measure was not adopted, and after much delay the Dutch agreed to give the desired reparation.

Maurice Abbot not only took a leading part in the affairs of the East India Company during these years, he was an influential member of the Levant Company before 1607, and the English merchant service was, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, largely under his control.

Maurice Abbot expressed himself anxious a few years later to open up trade with Persia, and to wrest from the Portuguese East India Company the commercial predominance they had acquired there.

In 1624, when he was again returned to parliament for Kingston-upon-Hull, Maurice Abbot was appointed a member of the council for establishing the colony of Virginia.

Maurice Abbot married, firstly, Joan, daughter of George Austen, of Shalford, near Guildford, by whom he had five children.