stom 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 expeditions to India.
They were successful; and in 1602 the various speculators were, by the
government, formed into a company, upon the same principles and
arrangement as those which had been chartered in England.

At the time, therefore, to which we are reverting, the English and Dutch
had been trading in the Indian seas for more than fifty years; and the
Portuguese had lost nearly all their power, from the alliances and
friendships which their rivals had formed with the potentates of the
East, who had suffered from the Portuguese avarice and cruelty.

Whatever may have been the sum of obligation which the Dutch owed to the
English for the assistance they received from them during their struggle
for independence, it does not appear that their gratitude extended
beyond the Cape; for, on the other side of it, the Portuguese, English,
and Dutch fought and captured each other's vessels without ceremony; and
there was no law but that of main force. The mother countries were
occasionally called upon to interfere; but the interference up to the
above time had produced nothing more than a paper war; it being very
evident that all parties were in the wrong.

In 1650 Cromwell usurped the throne of England, and the year afterwards,
having, among other points, vainly demanded of the Dutch satisfaction
for the murder of his regicide ambassador, which took place in this
year, and some compensation for the cruelties exercised on the English
at Amboyne some thirty years before, he declared war with Holland. To
prove that he was in earnest, he seized more than two hundred Dutch
vessels and the Dutch then (very unwillingly) prepared for war. Blake
and Van Tromp met, and the naval combats were most obstinate. In the
"History of England" the victory is almost invariably given to the
English, but in that of Holland to the Dutch.--By all accounts, these
engagements were so obstinate, that in each case they were both well
beaten. However, in 1654, peace was signed; the Dutchman promising "to
take his hat off" whenever he should meet an Englishman on the high
seas--a mere act of politeness, which Mynheer did not object to, as