This, I Say, Was In All
Appearance The True Design Of His Voyage, And The Reason Of It Seems
To Be This:
That an exact chart being drawn from his discoveries,
the East India Company might have perfect intelligence of the
Extent
and situation of this now-found country before they executed the
plan they were then contriving for preventing its being visited or
farther discovered by their own or any other nation; and this too
accounts for the care taken in laying down the map of this country
on the pavement of the new stadthouse at Amsterdam; for as this
county was henceforward to remain as a kind of deposit or land of
reserve in the hands of the East India Company, they took this
method of intimating as much to their countrymen, so that, while
strangers are gaping at this map as a curiosity, every intelligent
Dutchman may say to himself, "Behold the wisdom of the East India
Company. By their present empire they support the authority of this
republic abroad, and by their extensive commerce enrich its subjects
at home, and at the same time show us here what a reserve they have
made for the benefit of posterity, whenever, through the
vicissitudes to which all sublunary things are liable, their present
sources of power and grandeur shall fail."
I cannot help supporting my opinion in this respect, by putting the
reader in mind of a very curious piece of ancient history, which
furnishes us with the like instance in the conduct of another
republic.
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