Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/195



In a return presented to Parliament on the 29th of November, 1621, there will be found an account of the trade carried on by the Company with the East Indies during the previous twenty years, and of the difficulties they had then to encounter. Out of eighty-six ships which they had in that time despatched, eleven were surprised and seized by the Dutch, nine were lost, five were worn out by long service, going from port to port in India, and only thirty-six had returned home with cargoes, the remaining twenty-five being then in India, or on their way home. Indeed it is surprising that they were able to maintain any position whatever in India in opposition to the Dutch, whose settlements at that time prove that they