Losses were still heavy: between 1601 and 1640, the Company sent a total of 168 ships eastwards; only 104 arrived back again.68 But the Company’s balance sheets grew increasingly profitable, so much so that investors from around Europe began for the first time queuing up to buy EIC stock. In 1613 the subscription for the First Joint Stock raised £418,000. Four years later, in 1617, the subscription to Second Joint Stock pulled in a massive £1.6 million,* turning the EIC for the first time into a financial colossus, at least by English standards.
