The Latter, Having Tasted The Sweets
Of This Commerce, Resolved To Attempt A Direct Trade To India.
We have
already mentioned the voyages of Barentz in search of a north-east passage;
these proving unsuccessful, the
Dutch began to despair of reaching India,
except by the Cape of Good Hope; and this voyage they were afraid to
undertake, having, at this time, neither experienced seamen nor persons
acquainted with Indian commerce. A circumstance, however, occurred while
Barentz was in search of a north-west passage, which determined them to
sail to India by the Cape. One Houlman, a Dutchman, who had been in the
Portuguese Indian service, but was then confined in Lisbon for debt,
proposed to the merchants of Rotterdam, if they could liberate him, to put
them in possession of all he knew respecting Indian commerce; his offer was
accepted, and four ships were sent to India in 1594 under his command. The
adventurers met with much opposition from the Portuguese in India, so that
their voyage was not very successful or lucrative: they returned, however,
in twenty-nine months with a small quantity of pepper from Java, where they
had formed a friendly communication with the natives. The arrival of the
Dutch in India, - the subjugation of Portugal by Spain, which circumstance
dispirited and weakened the Portuguese, and the greater attention which the
Spaniards were disposed to pay to their American than their Indian
commerce, seem to have been the causes which produced the ruin of the
Portuguese in India, and the establishment of the Dutch.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 597 of 1007
Words from 163055 to 163313
of 273188
