Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/107

 COMPACTS AGAINST THE DUTCH 77 of Bantam in Java rejoiced that " now England and Bantam are both as one." From Achin in Sumatra, commanding the western gateway of the Archipelago, to the Spice Islands in its farthest east, the Dutch found themselves encountered by a new set of com- peting, and sometimes hostile, compacts between the native princes and the English Company. We even went so far as to try to provide an English wife for the King of Sumatra. As that potentate had expressed a wish for such a consort, " a gentleman of honourable parentage " proposed at a court meeting of the Company in 1614, " his daughter of most excel- lent parts for music, her needle, and good discourse, as also very beautiful and personable." The probable benefit to the Company was gravely debated, " and the lawfulness of the enterprise proved by Scripture." But, as the State Papers show, some feared that the other wives " may poison her if she became an extraor- dinary favourite." The father was willing to take the risk, but we do not hear that the lady went out. Yet the bare suggestion must have seemed alarming to the Dutch. Nor did the English diplomacy in Europe tend to soothe the rivalry in the Asiatic seas. Holland quickly valued at its real worth the lip-friendship of King James. During the Dutch efforts for a settlement with Spain, England was detached from the Protestant cause by the bait of a Spanish marriage, and of the Nether- lands as a prospective dowry of the Infanta after the death of the childless archduke. Holland, thus de-