Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/20

 xii FROM THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE third Act unfolds the strife between the two Protes- tant sea-powers for this prize. The Netherlands had long contained the marts by which the produce of the East, trans-shipped at Lisbon to Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam, was distributed to Northern and Central Europe. The capture of the Indian trade seemed to Holland a continuation of her just revolt against Por- tugal and Spain, a heritage from her hard subjection, and the seal of the independence which she had so dearly won. To England it was but the mercantile development, on an extended scale, of the sea enter- prise of the Elizabethan adventurers. Holland brought to the struggle a slowly acquired knowledge of the Eastern trade, a vast patriotic sub- scription from the United Provinces, and a resolve alike of her people and her Government that the Spice Islands should pass to no hands but their own. England cared to risk only a small capital, split up into separate voyages and joint-stocks; for state sup- port she had but the quicksand diplomacy of the first James and Charles. The United Dutch Company was practically a national enterprise; the London Company was a private undertaking; and the forti- tude of individual Englishmen in Asia availed little against the combined strength of Holland. The forces were too unequally matched, as will be seen when we come to describe the catastrophe which compelled the English to realize that, if they were to establish them- selves in the East, it must be somewhere else than in the Spice Archipelago.