The Story of Nations - Holland/Chapter 20

Interrupted as the Dutch trade with Spain and its dependencies was, that of England was still more impeded, and, in consequence, the Dutch had practically obtained a monopoly of Eastern produce in North-west Europe. Now of all Eastern produce the most generally in demand was pepper. The ordinary price of this spice had been from 2s. 8d. to 2s. 9d. the pound, and the Dutch having got the trade almost entirely into their hands, raised it from this Price to 4s. or even 8s. The Queen therefore determined to erect an East India Company among her own people, and on December 31, 1600, a charter issued constituting that trading association which in course of time established the Anglo-Indian Empire. The Queen, in order to encourage the trade, not only conferred a monopoly on the Company, and empowered the members of it to inflict heavy penalties and forfeitures on interlopers, but exempted the traders under the Company's charter from all customs duties for four years. As far as pepper went, the results were satisfactory, for from this time forth, the price of pepper to the English consumer was very rarely above 2s. the lb., and was frequently less. The first capital of the English East India Company was £72,000.

On March 20, 1602, the Dutch East India Company was formed. The capital of the Company was to be 6,600,000 florins, or £550,000, so much more rich, or so much more assured were the Dutch merchants. Of this capital Amsterdam was to provide a half, Zeland a quarter, and the residue was to come from the other Dutch cities. The direction of the Company was after a time to be proportionate to the rate contributed by each of the contingents. The fleet which sailed from Holland was of the same character with the capital of the Company, and the powers which the States-General bestowed on their directors and their agents are like those which Elizabeth conferred on the English Company. It is to be observed that this association amalgamated the private companies which had hitherto carried on their traffic without the general sanction of the States-General, and therefore consolidated a trade which was already in existence.

In our days, it would be unwise and unjust to confer a monopoly of trade upon any joint-stock company, and to bestow on the members of such a company the power of punishing those who intruded on the privilege so conferred. But it was a very different matter in those times. In the first place, they had to contend against the absolute power of the Spanish government. In the next, the Dutch and the English were a hundred years later in the field than their rivals. In the third place, there was need for an imposing display of strength, in order to secure the goodwill, and anticipate the possible treachery of the Eastern potentates with whom the new adventurers had to deal. Now such objects required the expenditure of a great deal of money not only in fleets, which were quite as much armed cruisers as merchant vessels, but on permanent works, ports, and factories, and it was obviously unfair that they who contribute nothing to the outlay should share in the gain which the expenditure of others secured. It may be observed that the first English voyage was directed to those Eastern ports with which the Dutch were already familiar. We shall see that in time this rivalry led to awkward entanglements, and in the end to serious quarrels. The trouble was all the greater, since a year after the foundation of the Dutch Company, Elizabeth died, and James became king.

In 1605, the Dutch East India Company sent out its third fleet to the East. The second of these fleets had established forts and factories in Malabar, and had established friendly relations with the princes of Sumatra. The third captured Amboyna from the Spaniards, and secured the whole town and island for the Company. The next object of the Dutch was to get possession of the five islands on which alone at that time the clove grew. For the monopoly of this spice Spaniards, Dutchmen, and Englishmen long contended, and warred sedulously. It was probably introduced into Europe by the various routes from the East from very early times, and was in great request. To obtain a monopoly of it for themselves the Dutch thought no efforts and no sacrifices too great. The Spaniards claimed the islands under the grant of Roderick Borgia. The Dutch seized them as prize of war. The English, who had ceased to care for the Pope, disputed the prize, as they disputed the original title. Nor was it possible, however anxious James was to cultivate peace with Spain, to enforce the same sympathies on his subjects, especially when they learned how great a prize there was to win.

The Dutch fleet liberated the King of Ternate, one of the Spice Islands, from the Spaniards, and chastised the King of Tydor for preferring the Spanish alliance. They captured the Spanish fort, and drove the Spaniards out They got possession of the Moluccas, and of the clove monopoly. In 1607, the States-General erected the Dutch merchants, who traded or buccaneered in the New World into a West India Company, with the sole right of trading with the eastern coast of America from Newfoundland to the Straits of Magellan, with the whole Pacific coast and Africa from the tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope. This was a fresh rent in the Bull of Borgia, and some results came of it.

In 1602, the Dutch founded the city of Batavia in Java, reviving the ancient name of Holland in the tropics, and selecting characteristically a swamp for the site of their city. Batavia became the head-quarters of the Dutch East India Company, and is the headquarters of the Dutch Colonial Empire to this day. But during the whole time that the first war lasted, the Dutch were extending and strengthening this armed trade of theirs in the East, at the expense of Spaniard and Portuguese, defeating their navies, storming their forts, and proving to the Oriental rulers, who had hitherto no knowledge of any Powers but that of Spain and Portugal, that there was one other race at least, which was more than a match for these Europeans, with whom alone the native rulers had been hitherto familiar. It may be well imagined that the successes of the Dutch admirals in the Eastern Archipelago, were beginning to make even the most obstinate among the Spanish ministers eagerly desirous of peace, even at the cost of not a little humiliation.

Perhaps as good an illustration of Dutch warfare in the Indian seas as could be given, is the sea-fight of September, 1606. The Dutch admiral, who had been for three years past cruising in these seas, and had been picking up spoils from trade and war, determined to lay siege to the Portuguese town and fort of Malacca. He had eleven small ships, fourteen hundred men, and a native prince for his instruments. The last was indeed no particular good, for his soldiers, though picturesque, were worthless; and it was not difficult to understand how easily Spain and Portugal were able to give effect to Borgia's Bull. So when the Dutch admiral attempted to make use of the Sultan of Johore's soldiers for the purposes of a scientific siege he found that they were quite untrustworthy, and that it would be madness to expose his own troops to the pestilence and heat, which were sure to be more formidable than the enemy was. He gave up his siege works, and simply blockaded the fort.

Now at this time the Spanish Viceroy, Alphonso De Castro, with a fleet of fourteen great galleons, four galleys, and sixteen smaller vessels, summoned the Sultan of Acheen to build a fort for his own subjugation, to give up all the Netherlanders in his dominions, and to pay tribute to Philip III. The Sultan, who knew now what sort of trust could be reposed in the Netherlanders, refused to obey, and when force was used, met it successfully, for he repelled the Spaniards, inflicting considerable loss on them. Informed of the danger in which Malacca was, De Castro moved with all his fleet thither, and encountered the Dutch admiral Matelieff on August 17th. The battle was indecisive, though the Spaniards were in overwhelming force. But De Castro contrived to raise the siege of Malacca. A month after a small part of the Spanish fleet had sailed away, and Matelieff persuaded his comrades with some difficulty to attack the remainder. He sailed back to Malacca, and. entirely defeated the fleet. The rest fled into the harbour, and there, in order to save themselves from falling into the hands of the Dutch, the Spaniards set fire to the remainder of their vessels. Having gained these successes against overwhelming odds, the Dutch admiral returned to Amsterdam, gave an account of his proceedings to the States-General, and received their hearty commendations.

Now the Court of Brussels, the Archdukes made by the gift of Philip II. on his death-bed, the sovereigns of the Netherlands, and the paper lords of Holland, were beginning to be weary of this long, costly ruinous war. Their pride, however, made them slow to recognize the inevitable. It gradually dawned upon them that they should certainly fail, if they strove as they had striven for forty years, to reduce the Dutch to submission, to extirpate their religion, and set up the Holy Inquisition anew in the thriving cities of the Republic. But there was one thing to which they might cling - the exclusion of the Dutch from India and America. If they could succeed in negotiating a brief truce, they might impoverish their ancient foes by destroying their trade, and when the truce was over, might attack them with renewed resources. For the Eastern trade of Holland had prospered so greatly that if she could keep this she might believe that the Baltic trade, her earliest achievement, might be considered of secondary importance. Now the English were already becoming successful rivals of the Dutch in this northern trade, while they lagged far behind them in Eastern enterprise.

The negotiations for peace, commenced three full years before the result was finally secured, constantly broke down when the demand was made that the trade of Holland should be curtailed, or practically speaking, destroyed. It might be alleged that there was no precedent for a sovereign treating with his rebellious subjects and acknowledging their independence. Such a result was at variance with all the principles and all the practice of public law in Europe. Again, that a community should decide for itself what its own public worship should be, and what toleration it would grant to other religions, without taking the least into account what the religion of their nominal ruler was, was shocking, almost flagitious. At times the Courts of Spain and Brussels seemed content to concede the reality, if the States-General would recognize the fiction of Spain's supremacy in Church and State.

But they might yield all this if they could only stop the Hollanders from trading in the East and in the West. This was the real pivot on which the whole negotiation turned. There were men among the Hollanders who desired peace. Such was probably Barneveldt. There were more who would let the war go on interminably. Such was certainly Maurice; such were the vigorous Dutch captains who traded and pillaged so successfully. But Barneveldt would not have accepted a ruinous any more than he could a reactionary peace; and Maurice, especially as all Europe favoured a pacification, and Holland ran the risk of standing alone, could not refuse a peace which left his country in the possession of all that it had fought and suffered for, So the peace came, on the basis of recognizing existing facts, and passing the question of the Dutch trade over in silence. The Republic had gained its ends.