urable treaty of
commerce. But by far the most extensive and lucrative commerce which the
Dutch possessed in Europe, was in the Baltic: there they had gradually
supplanted the Hanseatic League, and by the middle of the seventeenth
century, nearly all the commodities of the countries lying on, or
communicating with this sea, were supplied to the rest of Europe by the
Dutch. In the year 1612, they first engaged in the whale fishery at
Greenland. In 1648, taking advantage of the civil troubles in England, and
having by this time acquired a powerful influence at the Russian court,
they interfered with the trade of the English Russian Company at Archangel;
and this new branch of trade they pushed with their national industry and
perseverance, so that in 1689 they had 200 factors in this place.

In the year 1621 the Dutch formed a West India Company: their first objects
were to reduce Brazil and Peru: in the latter they were utterly
unsuccessful. By the year 1636 they had conquered the greater part of the
coast of Brazil: they lost no time in reaping the fruits of this conquest:
for in the space of thirteen years, they had sent thither 800 ships of war
and commerce, which were valued at 4-1/2 millions sterling; and had in that
time taken from Spain, then sovereign of Portugal, 545 ships. In the year
1640 the Portuguese shook off the Spanish yoke, and from this event may be
dated the decline of the Dutch power in Brazil: in 1654 they were entirely
expelled from this country.

In the year 1651, they colonized the Cape of Good Hope; and in the same
year, began the obstinate and bloody maritime, war between Holland and
England. This arose principally from the navigation act, which was passed
in England in 1650: its object and effect was to curtail the commerce
between England and Holland, which consisted principally of foreign
merchandize imported into, and English merchandize exported from, England
in Dutch vessels. In this war, the Dutch lost 700 merchant ships in the
years 1652 and 1653. In 1654, peace was made. The object of the navigation
act, at least so far as regarded the Dutch acting as the carriers of the
English trade, seems to have been completely answered, for in 1674, after a
great frost, when the ports were open, there sailed out of the harbour of
Rotterdam above 300 sail of English, Scotch, and Irish ships at one time.
The example of the English being followed by the nations of the north, the
Dutch carrying trade