Correct Option: B

The British presence in India dates back to the early part of the seventeenth century. On 31 December, 1600, Elizabeth, then the monarch of the United Kingdom, acceded to the demand of a large body of merchants that a royal charter be given to a new trading company, “The Governor and Company of Merchants of London, Trading into the East-Indies.” Between 1601 and 1613, merchants of the East India Company took twelve voyages to India, and in 1609 William Hawkins arrived at the court of Jahangir to seek permission to establish a British presence in India. Hawkins was rebuffed by Jahangir, but Sir Thomas Roe, who presented himself before the Mughal Emperor in 1617, was rather more successful. Two years later, Roe gained Jahangir’s permission to build a British factory in Surat, and in 1639, this was followed by the founding of Fort St. George (Madras).