Company’s commercial and political functions have always been intermingled-Macaulay

It is a mistake to suppose that the Company was a merely commercial body till the middle of the last century. Commerce was its chief object; but in order to enable it to pursue that object, it had been, like the other Companies which were its rivals, like the Dutch India Company, like the French India Company, invested from a very early period with political functions. It was intrusted with the very highest prerogatives of sovereignty.