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 in the relation of suzerain to many of the minor princes, agreements or treaties under which the local authorities bound themselves to supply their spices only to the Dutch and to them under rigid conditions which practically made serfs of the islanders. But if the Dutch attitude was a natural one still more so was that of the English when they resolutely declined to accept the theory of exclusive rights which their trade rivals sought to establish. They took the line that the seas were open to all, that free trade was an inalienable right of every nation, and that if the Hollanders had done the principal part in breaking the Portuguese monopoly, they would never have achieved the amount of success they did if the way had not been prepared for them by England's defeat of the Great Armada in 1588.

In a controversy of this character, in which there was an element of right on each side, and in which there was a substantial financial interest involved the issue was certain to be fiercely contested. But probably neither party at the outset dreamed that so bitter and prolonged a quarrel would develop from it as that it gave rise to. The English, at all events, seem to have had little conception of the difficulties which the Dutch were to interpose to their trading until they were actually confronted with them.

The earliest purely trading visit paid to the Moluccas was that made by Sir Henry Middleton in 1604. On this occasion excellent relations were established with the natives and, no doubt, if the voyage had been followed up immediately a lodgment might have been effected which the Dutch could not have challenged. But nothing further of consequence was done until 1609 when Keeling took a ship to the Moluccas and was warned off by the Dutch in