Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/63

 CHAPTER II

INFLUENCE AND CONNECTION OF POLITICS IN EUROPE AND ASIA

1660-1700

In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the three maritime peoples of the West – the English, Dutch, and French – had manifestly entered the lists of competition for commercial ascendency in Asiatic waters, Spain and Portugal having already fallen far into the rear. The English Company's establishments in the East Indies consisted at this time of the presidency of Bantam, with Macassar and other places in the Indian Archipelago; Fort St. George and its dependent factories on the Coromandel Coast and in the Bay of Bengal; and Surat on the west coast of Bombay, with other subordinate posts on that side of India; as well as some places on the Persian Gulf.

It is of primary importance, in order to set in clear light the earlier subsequent stages of the rise of British dominion, and to explain why England finally distanced other competitors in this long and eventful race, that the vicissitudes of European politics in the latter part of this century should be briefly touched upon; because