lyo Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



oceanic navigation. The Devonians and Bretons, whose fishing fleets 

 sailed yearly to Newfoundland and Iceland, and the harpooners of 

 Zeeland, who hunted w^hales in the Arctic, felt themselves the equals 

 of the southern mariners who claimed all the lucrative trade ; and 

 it is probable that, apart from religious convulsions, there would 

 soon have teen a contest for freedom of navigation. At this verv 

 time Europe was rent in twain by the Reformation, North was arrayed 

 against South in a struggle of life and death; and, in the mighty 

 drama of religious wars, there is danger of looking upon the work 

 of the navigators as a mere episode. For Philip II. threatened to 

 dominate Western Europe with mighty fleets and veteran armies, 

 and against him were arrayed England, Holland and the Huguenots 

 of France. It is by no mere accident that South Africa is peopled 

 by English, Dutch and Huguenot French; for the ancestors of these 

 men resisted the tyranny and defied the pretensions of Spain, opening 

 the highway of the seas and seizing the newly-discovered lands for 

 the nations of Northern Europe. 



With the Seventeenth Century we reach the culminating point 

 of Dutch prosperity ; and we find ourselves in the age of great com- 

 panies, both Dutch and English. Both of these circumstances must 

 be understood to explain the \oyage of Van Riebeek. Why was he 

 sent out by a company ? Because all the enterprise of Holland and 

 England was at that time the work of companies. Why was the 

 company Dutch and not English? Because the English followed 

 mainly in the path of Spain and turned their chief attention to the 

 Atlantic coast of America, while the Dutch were the successors to 

 the Portuguese, whose commerce they had destroyed, and their policy 

 virtually treated the Indian Ocean as a Dutch lake. 



Never since the days of Athens has a country risen so rapidly 

 to the highest place in wealth, in art, and in science, as did Holland 

 during her great struggle with Spain. Holland fought for existence 

 and grew rich at the same time, while Spain became exhausted and 

 bankrupt during her' struggle for domination. Amsterdam became 

 the financial capital of Northern Europe, and Ley den the home of 

 the most advanced learning, while the Dutch painters acquired that 

 supremacy in art which had formerly belonged to the Italian masters. 

 The last phase of the religious struggle, brought on by the 

 belated bigotry of Louis XIV. and James II., saw Holland assume 

 for a moment the leading position among the nations of Europe ; 

 for it led to the Revolution which seated William of Orange on the 

 English throne, from which he directed that Grand Alliance that, 

 after his death, humbled the power of France. In addition to this, 

 it filled Holland with Huguenot refugees, who lent their arms against 

 their intolerant country, and whose numbers and industry added to 

 the population and wealth of Amsterdam. 



The number of Huguenots who left France has never been con 

 clusively established ; but few historians estimate it to have been 

 less than a hundred thousand, while some place it at more than half 

 a million. We must be on our guard, therefore, against the popular 



