Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/120

 86 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO medal with a massy chain, and the assurance of being reappointed a director on his return. He sailed in July, 1613, at the head of a large fleet, with ample pow- ers from the Council of Seventeen ratified by the States- General, and with a commission direct from Prince Maurice. This double sanction of the States-General and of the House of Orange represented the union of the supreme civil power with the highest military au- thority in Holland. It gave to the Flemish Company a national basis which was absent from the charters of our Stuart kings, and which the English Company only obtained by Acts of Parliament under Dutch Will- iam, three-quarters of a century later. The tenure of office for the Dutch governor-generals was five years —a term afterwards adopted for our own. Thus backed by the strength of his nation, Reynst detached a squadron on the voyage out to plant fac- tories at Aden and on the Arabian coast, and became the founder of the Dutch trade in the Red Sea. But his chief aim was to shut up the nutmeg and clove islands of the Archipelago against the English. With a fleet of eleven ships he chastised the Banda chiefs who had traded with us, seized on the neighbouring islands, and drove us out of Amboyna. His career was cut short by dysentery in December, 1615. Laurens Reaal (1616 - 1618), provisionally appointed to fill his place by the Council of India then assembled at Ternate, consoli- dated what his two predecessors had won. He strength- ened the Dutch fortifications throughout the Archi- pelago, extended the Company's commerce, filled its