Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/46

18 where trading could be done – on the Arabian seaboard, in the Persian Gulf, from the western side of India to Northeastern China – the European nations were now contending vigorously for commercial profits and privileges.

The value of the prize for which they were competing was even then perfectly well known; and subsequent history has proved that the wealth, liberties, and political predominance at home of the contending nations depended considerably on their failure or success. It was the foreign imports that brought the revenue which maintained the great fleets and armies of Spain; it was maritime trade that fed the stubborn power of resistance displayed by the Dutch Republic; and the greatness of England has been manifestly founded upon her world-ranging commerce. By far the most important branch of sea-borne traffic was, in the seventeenth century, the exchange of goods with Asia, and each national government took part, directly or indirectly, in the struggle for it. The first maritime explorers from the despotically governed states of Spain and Portugal seized lands and claimed navigation rights in the name of their Crown, which at once treated all these captures as increments to its complete sovereignty.

Between the Dutch Republic and its East India Company the connection was exceedingly close; although a formal distinction was always maintained. In 1618 this Company, as we learn from an English report, was composed of the great majority of the Privy