develop its sea trade. It had the monopoly of all the products of the
East. Produce and spices from Asia were by her brought to Europe of a
yearly value of sixteen million francs. The powerful East India
Company, founded in 1602, had built up in Asia an empire, with
possessions taken from the Portuguese. Mistress in 1650 of the Cope of
Good Hope, which guaranteed it a stopping-place for its ships, it
reigned as a sovereign in Ceylon, and upon the coasts of Malabar and
Coromandel. It had made Batavia its seat of government, and extended
its traffic to China and Japan. Meanwhile the West India Company, of
more rapid rise, but less durable, had manned eight hundred ships of
war and trade. It had used them to seize the remnants of Portuguese
power upon the shores of Guinea, as well as in Brazil.

The United Provinces had thus become the warehouse wherein were
collected the products of all nations.

The colonies of the Dutch at this time were scattered throughout the
eastern seas, in India, in Malacca, in Java, the Moluccas, and various
parts of the vast archipelago lying to the northward of Australia.
They had possessions on the west coast of Africa, and as yet the
colony of New Amsterdam remained in their hands. In South America the
Dutch West India Company had owned nearly three hundred leagues of
coast from Bahia in Brazil northward; but much had recently escaped
from their hands.

The United Provinces owed their consideration and power to their
wealth and their fleets. The sea, which beats like an inveterate enemy
against their shores, had been subdued and made a useful servant; the
land was to prove their destruction. A long and fierce strife had been
maintained with an enemy more cruel than the sea,--the Spanish