(i) By the 1970s this network, controlled by Indian merchants, was breaking down. (ii)The European companies gradually gained power – first securing a variety of concessions from local courts, then the monopoly rights to trade. This resulted in a decline of the old ports of Surat and Hoogly through which local merchants had operated. Exports from those ports fell dramatically, the credit that had financed the earlier trade began drying up and the local banker slowly went bankrupt. (iii)While Surat and Hoogly decayed. Bombay and Calcutta grew This shift from the old ports to the new ones was an indicator of the growth of colonial power Trade through the new ports came to be controlled by European companies, and was carried in European ships. While many of the old trading houses collapsed, those that wanted to survive had to now operate within a network shaped by European trading companies.