Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/103

 DUTCH AND ENGLISH RIVAL CLAIMS 73 The harsher measures of the Dutch in the Archi- pelago belong, generally, to a period subsequent to 1623. It was not till a much later date that they fully developed their system of confining the islanders on pain of piracy to their own or adjacent coasts, forbade their sending or receiving embassies to or from India and the Asiatic continent, and enforced a tribute in " full-grown slaves." In the early years of the seven- teenth century the Dutch really were what they de- clared themselves to be, the deliverers of the islands from Portuguese oppression. In return for their pro- tection they demanded the exclusive trade and such subsidiary guarantees as they deemed needful to se- cure it. The growing rivalry of the English put an end to this state of comparative calm. On the one hand, the Dutch claimed the monopoly of the richest of the Spice Islands on the threefold ground of priority of occupa- tion, services rendered to the natives against the Por- tuguese, and treaties which at once defined and secured their rights. On the other hand, the English asserted the still earlier arrival of Drake's ship in 1579, denied that the isolated coast castles of the Dutch amounted to effective occupation of a great archipelago, and claimed an equal right with the Dutch to make treaties with the native powers. The English claim founded on Drake's priority of discovery could not be pressed in serious diplomacy, as it told against our general contention that a title to territory could be maintained only on the ground of