THE PORTUGUESE IN SOUTH AFRICA FROM 1505 TO 1700.

CHAPTER XVI.

APPEARANCE OF RIVALS IN THE EASTERN SEAS.

The debt which the world owes to the Portuguese for weakening the Mohamedan power and thus preventing the subjugation of a larger portion of Eastern Europe than was actually overrun by the Turks should not be forgotten, but loug before the close of the sixteenth century they had ceased to be participants in the great progressive movement of the Caucasian race. Upon a conquering nation rests an enormous responsibility : no smaller than that of benefiting the world at large. Was Portugal doing this in her eastern possessions to such an extent as to make her displacement there a matter deserving universal regret ? Probably her own people would reply that she was, for every nation regards its own acts as better than those of others : but beyond her borders the answer unquestionably would be that she was not. Rapacity, cruelty, corruption, have all been laid to her charge at this period, and not without sufficient reason. But apart from these vices, her weakness under the Castilian kings was such that she was incapable of doing any good. When an individual is too infirm and decrepit to manage his affairs, a robust man takes his place, and so it is with States. The weak one may cry out that might is not right, but such a cry finds a very feeble echo. India was not held by the Portuguese under the only indefeasible tenure : that of making the best use of it ; and thus it could be seized by a stronger power without Christian nations feeling that a wrong was being done.

Before recounting in brief the commencement of the Dutch conquests, a glance may be given to the acts of other nations, and especially to those of our own countrymen, in the eastern seas at an earlier date.

The French were the first to follow the Portuguese round the Cape of Good Hope to India. As early as 1507 a corsair of that nation, named Mondragon, made his appearance in the Mozambique channel with two armed vessels, and plundered a ship under command of Job Queimado. He also captured and robbed another Indiaman nearer home. On the 18th of January 1509 a fleet commanded by Duarte Pacheco fell in with him off Cape Finisterre, and after a warm engagement sank one of his ships and captured the other. Mondragon was taken a prisoner to Lisbon, where he found means of making his peace with the king, and he was then permitted to return to France.

Twenty years later three ships, fitted out by a merchant named Jean Ango, sailed from Dieppe for India. The accounts of this expedition are so conflicting that it is impossible to relate the occurrences attending it with absolute accuracy. It is certain, however, that one of the ships never reached her destination. Another was wrecked on the coast of Sumatra, where her crew were all murdered. The third reached Diu in July 1527. She had a crew of forty Frenchmen, but was commanded by a Portuguese named Estevao Dias, nicknamed Brigas, who had fled from his native country on account of misdeeds committed there, and had taken service with the strangers. The ruler of Diu regarded this ship with great hostility, and as he was unable to seize her openly, he practised deceit to get her crew within his power. Professing friendship, he gave Dias permission to trade in his territory, but took advantage of the first opportunity to arrest him and his crew. They were handed over as captives to the paramount Mohamedan ruler, and were obliged to embrace his creed to preserve their lives. They were then taken into his service and remained in India.

Early in 1529 two ships commanded by Jean and Raoul Parmentier, fitted out partly by Jean Ango, partly by merchants of Rouen, sailed from Dieppe. In October of the same year they reached Sumatra, but on account of great loss of life from sickness, on the 22nd of January 1530 they turned homeward. As they avoided the Portuguese settlements, nothing was known at Goa of their proceedings except what was told by a sailor who was left behind at Madagascar and was afterwards found there. This expedition was almost as unsuccessful as the preceding one. On their return passage the ships were greatly damaged in violent storms, and they reached Europe with difficulty.

From that time until 1601 there is no trace of a French vessel having passed the Cape of Good Hope. In May of this year the Corbin and Croissant, two ships fitted out by some merchants of Laval and Vitré, sailed from St. Malo. They reached the Maldives safely, but there the Gorbin was lost in July 1602, and her commander was unable to return to France until ten years had gone by. The Croissant was lost on the Spanish coast on her homeward passage.

On the 1st of June 1604 a French East India Company was established on paper, but it did not get further. In 1615 it was reorganised, and in 1617 the first successful expedition to India under the French flag sailed from a port in Normandy. From that date onward ships of this nation were frequently seen in the eastern seas. But the French made no attempt to form a settlement in South Africa, and their only connection with this country was that towards the middle of the seventeenth century a vessel was sent occasionally from Rochelle to collect a cargo of sealskins and oil at the islands in and near the present Saldanha Bay.

The English were the next to appear in Indian waters. A few individuals of this nation may have served in Portuguese ships, and among the missionaries, especially of the Company of Jesus, who went out to convert the heathen, it is not unlikely that there were several. One at least, Thomas Stephens by name, was rector of the Jesuit college at Salsette. A letter written by him from Goa in 1579, and printed in the second volume of Hakluyt's work, is the earliest account extant of an English voyager to that part of the world. It contains no information of importance.

The famous sea captain Francis Drake, of Tavistock in Devon, sailed from Plymouth on the 13th of December 1577, with the intention of exploring the Pacific ocean. His fleet consisted of five vessels, carrying in all one hundred and sixty-four men. His own ship, named the Pelican, was of one hundred and twenty tons burden. The others were the Elizabeth, eighty tons, the Marigold, thirty tons, a pinnace of twelve tons, and a storeship of fifty tons burden. The last named was set on fire as soon as her cargo was transferred to the others, the pinnace was abandoned, the Marigold was lost in a storm, the Elizabeth, after reaching the Pacific, turned back through the straits of Magellan, and the Pelican alone continued the voyage. She was the first English ship that sailed round the world. Captain Drake reached England again on the 3rd of November 1580, and soon afterwards was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth on board his ship. The Pelican did not touch at any part of the South African coast, but there is the following paragraph in the account of the voyage : —

"We ran hard aboard the Cape, finding the report of the Portuguese to be most false, who affirm that it is the most dangerous cape of the world, never without intolerable storms and present danger to travellers who come near the same. This cape is a most stately thing, and the fairest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth, and we passed by it on the 18th of June."

In 1583 four English traders in precious stones, acting partly on their own account and partly as agents for merchants in London, made their way by the Tigris and the Persian gulf to Ormuz, where at that time people of various nationalities were engaged in commerce. John Newbery, the leader of the party, had been there before. The others were named Ralph Fitch, William Leades, and James Story. Shortly after their arrival at Ormuz they were arrested by the Portuguese authorities on the double charge of being heretics and spies of the prior Dom Antonio, who was a claimant to the throne of Portugal, and under these pretences they were sent prisoners to Goa. There they managed to clear themselves of the first of the charges, Story entered a convent, and the others, on finding bail not to leave the city, were set at liberty in December 1584, mainly through the instrumentality of the Jesuit father Stephens and Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, of whom more will be related in the following pages. Four months afterwards, being in fear of ill-treatment, they managed to make their escape from Goa. After a time they separated, and Fitch went on a tour through India, visiting many places before his return to England in 1591. An account of his travels is extant in Hakluyt's collection, but there is not much information in it, and it had no effect upon subsequent events.

Thomas Candish sailed from Plymouth on the 21st of July 1586, with three ships — the Desire, of one hundred and twenty tons, the Content, of sixty tons, and the Hugh Gallant, of forty tons — carrying in all one hundred and twenty-three souls. After sailing round the globe, he arrived again in Plymouth on the 9th of September 1588, having passed the Cape of Good Hope on the 16th of May.

The first English ships that put into a harbour on the South African coast were the Penelope, Merchant Royal, and Edward Bonaventure, which sailed from Plymouth for India on the 10th of April 1591, under command of Admiral George Raymond. This fleet put into the watering place of Saldanha at the end of July. The crews, who were suffering from scurvy, were at once sent on shore, where they obtained fresh food by shooting wild fowl and gathering mussels and other shell-fish along the rocky beach. Some inhabitants had been seen when the ships sailed in, but they appeared terrified, and at once moved inland. Admiral Raymond visited Robben Island, where he found seals and penguins in great numbers. One day some hunters caught a Hottentot, whom they treated kindly, making him many presents and endeavouring to show him by signs that they were in want of cattle. They then let him go, and eight days afterwards he returned with thirty or forty others, bringing forty oxen and as many sheep. Trade was at once commenced, the price of an ox being two knives, that of a sheep one knife. So many men had died of scurvy that it was considered advisable to send the Merchant Royal back to England weak handed. The Penelope, with one hundred and one men, and the Edward Bonaventure, with ninety-seven men, sailed for India on the 8th of September. On the 12th a gale was encountered, and that night those in the Edward Bonaventure, whereof was captain James Lancaster — who was afterwards famous as an advocate of Arctic exploration, and whose name was given by Bylot and Baffin to the sound which terminated their discoveries in 1616 — saw a great sea break over the admiral's ship, which put out her lights. After that she was never seen or heard of again.

The appearance of these rivals in the Indian seas caused much concern in Spain and Portugal. There was as yet no apprehension of the loss of the sources of the spice trade, but it was regarded as probable that English ships would lie in wait at St. Helena for richly laden vessels homeward bound, so in 1591 and again in 1593 the king directed the viceroy to instruct the captains not to touch at that island.

It was not by Englishmen, however, though they visited India at this early period, but by the Dutch, that the Portuguese power in the East was overthrown. That power was like a great bubble, but it required pricking to make it burst, and our countrymen did not often come in contact with it. Sir Francis Drake indeed, who was utterly fearless, went wherever he chose, and opened fire upon all who attempted to interfere with him, but his successors, whose object was profit in trade, were naturally more cautious. The Indies were large, and so they avoided the Portuguese fortresses, and did what business they could with native rulers and people.

The merchants of the Netherlands had been accustomed to obtain at Lisbon the supplies of Indian products which they required for home consumption and for the large European trade which they carried on, but after 1580, when Portugal came under the dominion of Philippe II of Spain, they were shut out of that market. They then determined to open up direct communication with the East, and for that purpose made several gallant but fruitless efforts to find a passage along the northern shores of Europe and Asia. When the first of these had failed, and while the result of the second was still unknown, some merchants of Amsterdam fitted out a fleet of four vessels, which in the year 1595 sailed to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Before this date, however, a few Netherlanders had visited the eastern seas in the Portuguese service, and among them was one in particular whose writings had great influence at that period and for more than half a century afterwards.

Travels of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten.

Jan Huyghen van Linschoten was born at Haarlem, in the province of Holland. He received a good general education, but from an early age he gave himself up with ardour to the special study of geography and history, and eagerly read such books of travel as were within his reach. In 1579 he obtained permission from his parents, who were then residing at Enkhuizen, to proceed to Seville, where his two elder brothers were pushing their fortunes. He was at Seville when the cardinal king Henrique of Portugal died, leaving the succession to the throne in dispute. The duke of Alva with a strong Spanish army won it for his master, and shortly afterwards Linschoten removed to Lisbon, where he was a clerk in a merchant's office when Philippe made his triumphal entry and when Alva died.

Two years later he entered the service of a Dominican friar, by name Vicente da Fonseca, who had been appointed by Philippe primate of India, the see of Goa having been raised to an archbishopric in 1557. In April 1583, with his employer he sailed from Lisbon, and after touching at Mozambique — where he remained from the 5th to the 20th of August, diligently seeking information on that part of the world — he arrived at Goa in September of the same year. He remained in India until January 1589. When returning to Europe in the ship Santa Cruz from Cochin, he passed through a quantity of wreckage from the ill-fated Sao Thomé, which had sailed from the same port five days before he left, and he visited several islands in the Atlantic, at one of which — Terceira — he was detained a long time. He reached Lisbon again in January 1592, and eight months later rejoined his family at Enkhuizen, after an absence of nearly thirteen years. From this date his name is inseparably connected with those of the gallant spirits who braved the perils of the polar seas in the effort to find a north-eastern passage to China.

Early in 1595 the first of Linschoten's books was published, in which an account is given of the sailing directions followed by the Portuguese in their navigation of the eastern waters, drawn from the treatises of their most experienced pilots. This work shows the highest Travels of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten. 399 knowledge of navigation that Europeans had then acquired. They had still no better instrument for determining latitudes than the astrolabe and the cross staff, and no means whatever for ascertaining longitudes. The vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope was known by the appearance of sea-birds called Cape pigeons and the great drifting plants that are yet to be seen any day on the shores of the Cape peninsula. The different kinds of ground that adhered to the tallow of the sounding leads to some extent indicated the position, as did also the variation of the magnetic needle, but whether a ship was fifty or a hundred nautical miles from any given point could not be ascertained by either of these means. When close to the shore, however, the position was known by the appearance of the land, the form of the hills and mountains, and the patches of sand and thicket, all of which had been carefully delineated and laid down in the sailing directions.

Linschoten's first book was followed in 1596 by a description of the Indies, and by several geographical treatises drawn from Portuguese sources, all profusely illustrated with maps and plates. Of Mozambique an ample account was given from personal observation and inquiry. Dom Pedro de Castro had just been succeeded as captain by Nuno Velho Pereira, who informed the archbishop that in his three years term of office he would realise a fortune of about nine tons of gold, or £75,000 sterling, derived chiefly from the trade in the precious metal carried on at Sofala and in the territory of the monomotapa. Fort Sao Sebastiao had then no other garrison than the servants and attendants of the captain, in addition to whom there were only forty or at most fifty Portuguese and half - breed male residents on the island capable of assisting in its defence. There were three or four hundred huts occupied by negroes, some of whom were professed Christians, others Mohamedans, and still others heathens. The exports to India were gold, ivory, ambergris, ebony, and slaves. African slaves, being much stronger in body than the natives of Hindostan, were used to perform the hardest and coarsest work in the eastern possessions of Portugal, and — though Linschoten does not state this — they were employed in considerable numbers in the trading ships to relieve the European seamen from the heavy labour of pumping, hauling, stowing and unstowing cargo, cleansing, and so forth. These slaves were chiefly procured from the lands to the northward, and very few, if any of them, were obtained in the country south of the Zambesi.

It serves to show how carefully and minutely Linschoten elicited information at Mozambique, that he mentions a harbour on the coast which is not named by any of the Portuguese writers of the time except Dos Santos, whose book was not then published, and who only refers to it incidentally, though it is now known to be the best port between Inhambane and the Zambesi. This is Beira, as at present termed, then known to the sailors of the pangayos that traded to the southward as Porto Bango. Linschoten gives its latitude as 19'1/2°, half a degree north of Sofala. He mentions also Delagoa Bay, that is the present Algoa Bay, and gives its latitude as 3391/3°. He describes the monsoons of the Indian ocean, and states that ships from Portugal availed themselves of these periodical winds by waiting at Mozambique until the 1st of August, and never leaving after the middle of September, thus securing a safe and easy passage to the coast of Hindostan.

He frequently refers to the gold of Sofala and the country of the monomotapa, of which he had heard just such reports as Vasco da Gama had eagerly listened to eighty-six years before. Yet he did not magnify the importance of these rumours as the Portuguese had done, though it was mainly from his writings that his countrymen became possessed of that spirit of cupidity which induced them a few years later to make strenuous efforts to become masters of South-Eastern Africa.

Linschoten's treatises were collected and published in a single large volume, and the work was at once received as a text-book, a position which its merits entitled it to occupy. The most defective portion of the whole is that referring to South Africa : and for this reason, that it was then impossible to get any correct information about the interior of the continent below the Zambesi west of the part frequented by the Portuguese. Linschoten himself saw no more of it than a fleeting glimpse of False Cape afforded on his outward passage, and his description was of necessity based upon the faulty maps of the geographers of his time, so that it was full of errors. But his account of India and of the way to reach its several ports was so correct that it could serve the purpose of a guide-book, and his treatise on the mode of navigation by the Portuguese was thus used by the commander of the first Dutch fleet that appeared in the eastern seas.

1595] First voyage of the Dutch to India.

The four vessels which left Texel on the 2nd of April 1595 were under the general direction of an officer named Cornelis Houtman. In the afternoon of the 2nd of August the Cape of Good Hope was seen, and next day, after passing Agulhas, the fleet kept close to the land, the little Duifke sailing in front and looking for a harbour. On the 4th the bay called by the Portuguese Agoada de Sao Bras was discovered, and as the Duifke found good holding ground in nine or ten fathoms of water, the Mauritius, Hollandia, and Amsterdam entered and dropped their anchors.

Here the fleet remained until the 11th, when sail was again set for the East. During the interval a supply of fresh water was taken in, and some oxen and sheep were purchased from the inhabitants for knives, old tools, and pieces of iron. The Europeans were surprised to find the sheep covered with hair instead of wool, and with enormous tails of pure fat. No women or habitations were seen. The appearance of the Hottentots, their clothing, their assagais, their method of making a fire by twirling a piece of wood rapidly round in the socket of another piece, their filthiness in eating, and the clicking of their language, are all correctly described ; but it was surmised that they were cannibals, because they were observed to eat the half-raw intestines of animals, and a fable commonly believed in Europe was repeated concerning their mutilation in a peculiar manner of the bodies of conquered enemies. The intercourse with the few Hottentots seen was friendly, though at times each suspected the other of evil intentions.

A chart of the inlet was made, from which it is seen to be the one now called Mossel Bay. A little island in it was covered with seals and penguins, some of each of which were killed and eaten. The variation of the compass was observed to be so trifling that the needle might be said to point to the north.

From the watering place of Sao Bras Houtman continued his voyage to India, but it is not necessary to relate occurrences there. After his return to Europe several companies were formed in different towns of the Netherlands, with the object of trading to the East and wresting from the Portuguese that wealth which they were then too feeble to guard.

In the Leeuw, one of the ships sent out in 1598, and which put into the watering place of Saldanha for refreshment, the famous English seaman John Davis was chief pilot. He wrote an account of the voyage, in which he states that the Hottentots in Table Valley fell by surprise upon the men who were ashore bartering cattle, and killed thirteen of them. In his narrative Davis says that at Cape Agulhas the magnetic needle was without variation, but in his sailing directions, written after another voyage to India, he says : "At False Cape there is no variation that I can find by observing south from it. The variation of Cape Agulhas is thirty minutes from north to west. And at the Cape of Good Hope the compass is varied from north to east five and twenty minutes."

1601] Voyage of Paulus van Caerden.

No fresh discoveries on the African coast were made by any of the fleets sent out at this time, but to some of the bays new names were given.

In December 1599 four ships fitted out by an association at Amsterdam calling itself the New Brabant Company sailed from Texel for the Indies, under command of Pieter Both. Two of them returned early in 1601, leaving the Vereenigde Landen and the Hof van Holland under charge of Paulus van Caerden to follow as soon as they could obtain cargoes. On the 8th of July 1601 Van Caerden put into the watering place of Sao Bras on the South African coast, for the purpose of repairing one of his ships which was in a leaky condition. The commander, with twenty soldiers, went a short distance inland to endeavour to find people from whom he could obtain some cattle, but though he came across a party of eight individuals he did not succeed in getting any oxen or sheep. A supply of fresh water was taken in, but no refreshment except mussels could be procured, on account of which Van Caerden gave the inlet the name Mossel Bay, which it has ever since retained.

On the 14th; the Hof van Holland having been repaired, the two ships sailed, but two days later, as they were making no progress against a head wind, they put into another bay. Here some Hottentots were found, from whom the voyagers obtained for pieces of iron as many horned cattle and sheep as they could consume fresh or had salt to preserve. For this reason the commander gave it the name Flesh Bay.

On the 21st sail was set, but the Hof van Holland being found leaky again, on the 23rd another bay was entered, where her damages were repaired. On account of a westerly gale the ships were detained here until the 30th, when they sailed, but finding the wind contrary outside, they returned to anchor. No inhabitants were seen, but the commander visited a river near by, where he encountered a party from whom he obtained five sheep in exchange for bits of iron. In the river were numerous hippopotami. Abundance of fine fish having been secured here, the commander gave the inlet the name Fish Bay.

On the 2nd of August the ships sailed, and on the 27th passed the Cape of Good Hope, to the great joy of all on board, who had begun to fear that they would be obliged to seek a port on the eastern side to winter in.

On the 5th of May 1601 a fleet of three vessels, named the Ram, the Schaap, and the Lam, sailed for the Indies from Vere in Zeeland, under command of Joris van Spilbergen. On the 15th of November the fleet put into St. Helena Bay, where no inhabitants were seen, though many fires were observed inland. The only refreshment procurable was fish, which were caught in great quantities.

On the 20th Spilbergen sailed from St. Helena Bay, and beating against a head wind, on the evening of the 28th he anchored off an island, to which he gave the name Elizabeth. Four years later Sir Edward Michelburne termed it Cony Island, which name, under the Dutch form of Dassen, it still bears. Seals in great numbers, sea-birds of different kinds, and conies were found. At this place he remained only twenty-four hours. On the 2nd of December he cast anchor close to another island, which he named Cornelia. It was the Robben island of the present day. Here were found seals and penguins in great numbers, but no conies. The next day at noon Spilbergen reached the watering place of Saldanha, the anchorage in front of Table Mountain, and gave it the name Table Bay, which it still bears.

The sick were conveyed to land, where a hospital was established. A few inhabitants were met, to whom presents of beads were made, and who were understood to make signs that they would bring cattle for sale, but they went away and did not return. Abundance of fish was obtained with a seine at the mouth of a stream which Spilbergen named the Jacqueline, now Salt River; but, as meat was wanted, the smallest of the vessels was sent to Elizabeth Island, where a great number of penguins and conies were killed and salted in. The fleet remained in Table Bay until the 23rd of December. When passing Cornelia Island, a couple of conies were set on shore, and seven or eight sheep, which had been left there by some previous voyagers, were shot, and their carcases taken on board. Off the Cape of Good Hope the two French ships of which mention has been made were seen.

1602] Formation of the Dutch East India Company

Spilbergen kept along the coast, noticing the formation of the land and the numerous streams falling into the sea, but was sorely hindered in his progress by the Agulhas current, which he found setting so strong to the south-westward that at times he could make no way against it even with the breeze in his favour. On the 17th of January 1602, owing to this cause, he stood off from the coast, and did not see it again.

The fleets sent out by the different small companies which had been formed in the chief towns of the Free Netherlands gained surprising successes over the Portuguese in India, but as they did not work in concert no permanent conquests could be made. For this reason, as well as to prevent rivalry and to conduct the Indian trade in a manner the most beneficial to the people of the whole republic, the states-general resolved to unite all the small trading associations in one great company with many privileges and large powers. The charter, or terms upon which the Company came into existence, was dated at the Hague on the 20th of March 1602, and contained forty-six clauses, the principal of which were as follow : —

All of the inhabitants of the United Netherlands had the right given to them to subscribe to the capital in as small or as large sums as they might choose, with this proviso, that if more money should be tendered than was needed, those applying for shares of over two thousand five hundred pounds sterling should receive less, so that the applicants for smaller shares might have allotted to them the full amounts asked for.

The chambers, or offices for the transaction of business, were to participate in the following proportion : that of Amsterdam one-half, that of Middelburg in Zeeland one quarter, those of Delft and Rotterdam, otherwise called of the Maas, together one-eighth, and those of Hoorn and Enkhuizen, otherwise called those of the North Quarter or sometimes those of North Holland and West Friesland, together the remaining eighth.

The general directory was to consist of seventeen persons, eight of whom were to represent the chamber of Amsterdam, four that of Middelburg, two those of the Maas, two those of the North Quarter, and the seventeenth was to be chosen alternately by all of these except the chamber of Amsterdam. The place of meeting of the general directory was fixed at Amsterdam for six successive years, then at Middelburg for two years, then at Amsterdam again for six years, and so on.

The directors of each chamber were named in the charter, being the individuals who were the directors of the companies previously established in those towns, and it was provided that no others should be appointed until these should be reduced by death or resignation : in the chamber of Amsterdam to twenty persons, in that of Zeeland to twelve, and in those of Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn, and Enkhuizen each to seven. After that, whenever a vacancy should occur, the remaining directors were to nominate three qualified individuals, of whom the states of the province in which the chamber was situated were to select one.

To qualify an individual to be a director in the chambers of the North Quarter it was necessary to own shares to the value of £250 sterling, and double that amount to be a director in any of the other chambers. The directors were to be bound by oath to be faithful in the administration of the duties entrusted to them, and not to favour a majority of the shareholders at the expense of a minority. Directors were prohibited from selling anything whatever to the Company without previously obtaining the sanction of the states provincial or the authorities of the city in which the chamber that they represented was situated.

All inhabitants of the United Provinces other than this Company were prohibited from trading beyond the Straits of Magellan, or to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, during the period of twenty-one years, for which the charter was granted, under penalty of forfeiture of ship and cargo. Within these limits the East India Company was empowered to enter into treaties and make contracts in the name of the states- general, to build fortresses, to appoint governors, military commanders, judges, and other necessary officers, who were all, however, to take oaths of fidelity to the states-general or high authorities of the Netherlands, who were not to be prevented from making complaints to the states-general, and whose appointments were to be reported to the states-general for confirmation.

For these privileges the Company was to pay £12,500 sterling, which amount the states-general subscribed towards the capital, for the profit and at the risk of the general government of the provinces. The capital was nominally furnished in the following proportions : Amsterdam one-half, Zeeland one-fourth, the Maas one-eighth, and the North Quarter one-eighth ; but in reality it was contributed as under:— .......................................................................................................... .. £ ........s. d.

Amsterdam .................................................................................307,202 10 0

Zeeland ......................................................................................106,304 10 0

The Maas

............................Delft................................................................38,880 3

............................Rotterdam ........................................................ 14,546 16 4 8

The North Quarter

...........................Hoorn....................................................................22,369 3

......................... .Enkhuizen ............................................................. 47,380 3 4

Total working capital ...................................................................... 536,683 6 8

The share of the states-general ........................................................... 12,500 0 0

Total nominal capital ........................................................................549,183 6 8

The capital was divided into shares of £250 sterling each. The shares, often sub-divided into fractions, were negotiable like any other property, and rose or fell in value according to the position of the Company at any time.

The advantage which the State derived from the estab- lishment of this great association was apparent. The sums received in payment of import dues would have been con- tributed to an equal extent by individual traders. The amounts paid for the renewal of the charter — in 1647 the Company paid £133,333 6s. 8c?. for its renewal for twenty-five years, and still larger sums were paid subsequently — might have been derived from trading licenses. The Company frequently aided the Republic with loans of large amount when the State was in temporary need, but loans could then have been raised in the modern method whenever necessary. Apart from these services, however, there was one supreme advantage gained by the creation of the East India Company which could not have been obtained from individual traders. A powerful navy was called into existence, great armed fleets working in unison and subject to the same control were always ready to assist the State. What must otherwise have been an element of weakness, a vast number of merchant ships scattered over the ocean and ready to fall a prey to an enemy's cruisers, was turned into a bulwark of strength.

In course of time several modifications took place in the constitution of the Company, and the different provinces as well as various cities were granted the privilege of having representatives in one or other of the chambers. Thus the provinces Gelderland, Utrecht, and Friesland, and the cities Dordrecht, Haarlem, Leiden, and Gouda had each a representative in the chamber of Amsterdam ; Groningen had a representative in the chamber of Zeeland ; Overyssel one in the chamber of Delft, &c. The object of this was to make the Company represent the whole Republic.

Notwithstanding such regulations, however, the city of Amsterdam soon came to exercise an immoderate influence in the direction. In 1672 it was estimated that shares equal to three-fourths of the whole capital were owned there, and of the twenty-five directors of the local chamber, eighteen were chosen by the burgomasters of the city. Fortunately, the charter secured to the other chambers a stated proportion of patronage and trade.

Such was the constitution of the Company which set itself the task of destroying the Portuguese power in the East and securing for itself the lucrative spice trade. It had no difficulty in obtaining as many men as were needed, for the German states — not then as now united in one great empire — formed an almost inexhaustible reservoir to draw soldiers from, and the Dutch fisheries, together with Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, furnished an adequate supply of excellent seamen. It sent out strong and well-armed fleets, capable of meeting any force the enemy had to oppose them, and of driving him from the open seas. The first of these fleets consisted of three large ships, commanded by Sebald de Weert, which sailed on the 31st of March 1602, and it was followed on the 17th of June of the same year by eleven large ships and a yacht, under command of Wybrand van Waerwyk.

The Company soon wrested from the Portuguese their choicest possessions in the East, besides acquiring other valuable territory from native owners. Its dividends to the shareholders were enormous, owing largely to the spoil captured by its fleets. In one year they rose to seventy- five per cent of the paid -up capital, and for upwards of a century they averaged above twenty per cent.

CHAPTER XVII. PROCEEDINGS OF THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH.