The Dutch Pushed Their New Commerce With Great Vigour And Zeal.
In the year
1600 eight ships entered their ports laden with cinnamon, pepper, cloves,
nutmegs, and mace:
The pepper they obtained at Java, the other spices at
the Moluccas, where they were permitted by the natives, who had driven out
the Portuguese, to establish factories.
In consequence of a wild and ruinous spirit of speculation having seized
the Dutch merchants, the government, in 1602, formed all the separate
companies who traded to India, into one; and granted to this extensive
sovereignty over all the establishments that might be formed in that part
of the world. Their charter was for twenty-one years: their capital was
6,600,000 guilders (or about 600,000_l_.) Amsterdam subscribed one
half of the capital, and selected twenty directors out of sixty, to whom
the whole management of the trade was entrusted.
From this period, the Dutch Indian commerce flourished extremely: and the
company, not content with having drawn away a large portion of the
Portuguese trade, resolved to expel them entirely from this part of the
world. Ships fitted, either to trade or to fight, and having on board a
great number of soldiers, were sent out within a very few years after the
establishment of the company. Amboyna and the Moluccas were first entirely
wrested from the Portuguese: factories and settlements were in process of
time established from Balsora, at the mouth of the Tigris in the Persian
Gulf; along the coasts and islands of India, as far as Japan.
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