llanders that the Inquisition was the very best of all
possible arrangements, and that it was infinitely better that a man
should be burnt for half-an-hour in this world than for eternity in
the next.

This slight difference of opinion was the occasion of a war, which
lasted about eight years, and which, after having saved some hundreds
of thousands the trouble of dying in their beds, at length ended in
the Seven United Provinces being declared independent. Now we must go
back again.

For a century after Vasco de Gama had discovered the passage round the
Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese were not interfered with by other
nations. At last the adventurous spirit of the English nation was
roused. The passage to India by the Cape had been claimed by the
Portuguese as their sole right, and they defended it by force. For a
long time no private company ventured to oppose them, and the trade
was not of that apparent value to induce any government to embark in
a war upon the question. The English adventurers, therefore, turned
their attention to the discovery of a north-west passage to India,
with which the Portuguese could have no right to interfere, and in
vain attempts to discover that passage, the best part of the fifteenth
century was employed. At last they abandoned their endeavours, and
resolved no longer to be deterred by the Portuguese pretensions.

After one or two unsuccessful expeditions, an armament was fitted out
and put under the orders of Drake. This courageous and successful
navigator accomplished more than the most sanguine had anticipated. He
returned to England in the month of May, 1580, after a voyage which
occupied him nearly three years; bringing home with him great riches,
and having made most favourable arrangements with the king of the
Molucca Islands.

His success was followed up by Cavendish and others in 1600. The
English East India Company, in the meanwhile, received their first
charter from the government, and had now been with various success
carrying on the trade for upwards of fifty years.

During the time that the Dutch were vassals to the crown of Spain, it
was their custom to repair to Lisbon for the productions of the East,
and afterwards to distribute them through Europe; but when they
quarrelled with Philip, they were no longer admitted as retailers of
his Indian produce: the consequence was, that, while asserting, and
fighting for, their independence, they had also fitted out expedi