m 



and took possession of the island, wrested Malacca from the 

 Portuguese, and expelled the same nation from the Moluccas 

 or Spice Islands. In 1621, less than twenty years after its 

 foundation, the Company had a practical monopoly of the 

 trade in cloves, nutmegs, cinnamon, and other products of the 

 Archipelago. The Portuguese had been driven out, and 

 England onlv waged an obstinate but unsuccessful rivalry. In 

 1638 the Dutch supplanted the Portuguese in Japan, and in 

 1656 got possession of the island of Ceylon. 



In a work by Sir Walter Raleigh, entitled " Observations 

 touching Trade and Commerce with the Hollanders and other 

 Nations," presented to King James in the year 1603, we find 

 a striking picture of the commerce of the Netherlands as com- 

 pared with that of England. 



Raleigh attributes the sudden and astonishing rise of the 

 Netherlander, among other causes, to the " embargoing and 

 confiscating of their ships in Spain, which constrained them, 

 and gave them courage to trade by force into the East and 

 West Indies, and in Africa, where they employ 180 ships and 

 8700 mariners." (This, it should be noted, was only seven 

 years after the first Dutch vessel had reached Java.) Sir 

 Walter gives a number of interesting particulars respecting 

 the extent of Dutch trade. He says, "We send into the 

 Eastern kingdoms [of Europe] yearly but 100 ships ; the Low 

 Countries 3000. They send into France, Portugal, and Italy 

 from the Eastern kingdoms through the Sound and our 

 narrow seas 2000 ships ; we, none. They trade with 500 or 

 600 ships into our country ; we, with 40 ships to three of their 

 towns. They have as many ships as eleven kingdoms of 

 Christendom, let England be one. They build yearly 1000 

 ships, having not one timber tree growing in their own 

 country, nor home-bred commodities to lade 100 ships, yet 

 they have 20,000 ships and vessels, and all employed." In 

 shipbuilding and seamanship also the Dutch sailors in those 

 days were the superiors of the English, for Sir Walter says 

 that while an English ship of a hundred tons required a crew 

 of thirty men, the Hollanders would sail a ship of the same 

 size with ten men. 



We are accustomed to dwell on the naval exploits of Drake, 

 Hawkins, and Frobisher, on the enterprise of the Elizabethan 

 sailors and merchant-adventurers, and on the marvellous 

 success of our own great East India Company. We have good 

 reason to feel pride in the deeds of the gallant English seamen 

 of those days, and in the trade which in later times has 

 carried the English flag into every sea. But we are apt to 

 forget how comparatively recent is the predominant position of 

 England in commerce and in naval power. In the 17th 



