THE JURIDICAL CONTROVERSIES 343 



trade with the far east. Having failed to open up a passage to 

 the Indies by the north-east, they boldly sailed thither by the 

 Cape of Good Hope, in 1595, through the seas and to the 

 regions which Portugal claimed for herself. Encouraged by 

 success, other trading voyages by the same route were under- 

 taken almost every year. A United Dutch East India Company 

 was formed in 1602, and the States-General decided to maintain 

 their rights to the trade by force. The disputes and conflicts 

 with the Portuguese which followed were soon brought to a 

 head by the action of the redoubtable Jacob van Heemskerk in 

 attacking and seizing Portuguese ships. 1 The valuable booty 

 taken from the Portuguese was brought to Holland in 1604 and 

 1605, and caused much searching of heart among the share- 

 holders of the company. Many were gratified by the spoil, but 

 others of much influence, moved by conscientious scruples or 

 good policy, refused to share in it, and they threatened to 

 separate themselves from the company and form a rival asso- 

 ciation to carry on peaceful trade under the protection of the 

 King of France. It was about this time that Grotius, incited 

 by the condition of affairs, began to write a treatise with the 

 object of encouraging his countrymen to resist the claims of 

 the Portuguese by force. In a tract written about 1614 to 

 vindicate Mare Liberum against the attack of the Scotch 

 lawyer, Welwood which was not published, and the existence 

 of which was unknown till about forty years ago he says 

 that some years earlier, perceiving the great importance of the 

 East Indian trade for the Netherlands, and that it could only 

 be made secure by armed resistance to the Portuguese, he had 

 written a book in which he explained the law of war and 

 spoil ; and in order to rouse the popular mind he gave an 

 account of the ill-treatment of the Dutch in the East Indies at 

 the hands of the Portuguese. 2 Grotius was then only a little 



1 Tiele, Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in Oost- Indie ; Fruin, Een onuit- 

 geyeven uxrk van Hugo de Groot, in De Gids, Derde ser. zesde Jaargang, 1868, 

 vierde del ; M'Pherson, AnnaJ,s of Commerce, ii. 209, 226. 



"Ante annos aliquot, cum viderem ingentis esse momenti ad patriae securi- 

 tatem Indite qua; Orientalis dicitur commercium, id vero commercium satis 

 appareret obsistentibus per vim atque insidias Lusitanis sine armis retineri non 

 posse, operam dedi ut ad tuenda fortiter quae tarn feliciter coopissent nostrorum 

 animos inflammarem, proposita ob oculos causae ipsius iustitia et aequitate, unde 

 nasci rb ftt\iri recte a ueteribus traditum existimabam. Igitur et uuiversa belli 



