370 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC- 
[May, 
in sixteen hundred and twelve, England succeeded in getting a 
firm foothold in India; and by imperial permission, established a 
factory on the soil, at that time, of one of the most extensive and 
splendid monarchies in the vv^orld. 
The Portuguese, solely on the pretence of discovery, continued 
to claim an exclusive right to the passage around the Cape of 
Good Hope, nor were they wanting in power vigorously to en- 
force that right. Their possessions in the east, at this period, 
were immense. By conquest or by agreement, they had made 
themselves masters of Goa, Bombay ; of Aden, at the entrance of 
the Red Sea ; of Ormus, in the Persian Gulf; of part of the Ma- 
lay coast, in the Straits of Malacca; of the Molucca Islands; 
and of the coast of Ceylon, the very spice of all the eastern 
islands. They were possessed of factories in Bengal and in 
Siam ; and they had erected the city of Macao on the coast of 
China. 
The Dutch, after having shaken off the trammels of Spain, 
had opened an extensive and active trade direct with India. With 
both of these powerful competitors the English had to contend ; 
and with such vigour did they push their eastern enterprises, that 
in despite of superior power and much bad management on the 
part of directors, previous to the year sixteen hundred and six- 
teen, factories were established at Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the 
Banda Islands, Celebes, Malacca, Siam, the coasts of Malabar 
and Coromandel, but especially in the territories of the Great 
Mogul. On this success, a new subscription of one million . six 
hundred thousand pounds was raised. 
The power of Portugal in the east began to fall off, from the 
union of that country with Spain, whose monarch was wholly 
occupied with his golden schemes of aggrandizement in Spanish 
America ; while the Dutch now pursued their trade to the east 
with the utmost ardour, and were soon able to supplant the Portu- 
guese in the spice trade, and to expel them entirely from the 
Moluccas. The augmentation of capital in Holland was rapid 
beyond any previous example in any other country ; and a large 
portion of it was put into the trade of the east. England, mis- 
governed and oppressed, struggled hard, but with unequal power. 
Indeed, from this period, sixteen hundred and eighteen, up to six- 
teen hundred and fifty-eight, several conflicting companies existed, 
