The British East India Company was originally chartered as a joint-stock company in 1600 in order to trade English products for Asian goods. By the 1750s, however, the company had begun to

A. perform military and administrative functions and to control large areas of India by armed force.
B. View India only as a market for Chinese opium and as a source of income from the slave trade.
C. give up their exclusive trading rights with India and become more involved in the shipping business.
D. abandon their markets in India and concentrate on doing business with merchants in Japan instead.