Encompassing events from 1680 to the mid 1750s, this article examines the organization and adaptation to capital and credit crises of East Indies trade participants in two metropolitan locales – one whose core bounded the North and Baltic Seas, and the other centred around the South China Sea. It shows that in both locales commercial and governmental actors relied not only on state or company, but also on decentralized, port-based practices, institutions, and networks to solve problems and support a shared information culture. Thus, the rules of what I term ‘commercial commons’, rather than an imperial conflict, characterized many East Indies endeavours of this era. East India companies operated in multiple transnational, distributed, and port-based metropolitan locales for their access to capital and credit, and to police financial failure.
