cial to the
welfare of the land. He had always been most earnestly opposed to them,
detesting monopolies which interfered with that free trade and navigation
which should be common to all mankind. He had taken great pains however
in the years 1596 and 1597 to study the nature of the navigation and
trade to the East Indies in regard to the nations to be dealt with in
those regions, the nature of the wares bought and sold there, the
opposition to be encountered from the Spaniards and Portuguese against
the commerce of the Netherlanders, and the necessity of equipping vessels
both for traffic and defence, and had come to the conclusion that these
matters could best be directed by a general company. He explained in
detail the manner in which he had procured the blending of all the
isolated chambers into one great East India Corporation, the enormous
pains which it had cost him to bring it about, and the great commercial
and national success which had been the result. The Admiral of Aragon,
when a prisoner after the battle of Nieuwpoort, had told him, he said,
that the union of these petty corporations into one great whole had been
as disastrous a blow to the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal as the Union
of the Provinces at Utrecht had been. In regard to the West India
Company, its sole object, so far as he could comprehend it, had been to
equip armed vessels, not for trade but to capture and plunder Spanish
merchantmen and silver fleets in the West Indies and South America. This
was an advantageous war measure which he had favoured while the war
lasted. It was in no sense a commercial scheme however, and when the
Truce had been made--the company not having come into existence--he
failed to comprehend how its formation could be profitable for the
Netherlanders. On the contrary it would expressly invite or irritate the
Spaniards into a resumption of the war, an object which in his humble
opinion was not at all desirable.

Certainly these ideas were not especially reprehensible, but had they
been as shallow and despicable as they seem to us enlightened, it is
passing strange that they should have furnished matter for a criminal
prosecution.

It was doubtless a disappointment for the promoters of the company, the
chief of whom was a bankrupt, to fail in obtaining their charter, but it
was scarcely high-treason to oppose it. There is no doubt however that
the disapprobation with which Barneveld regarded the West India Company,
t