The work of Linschoten was a source of wealth, both from the scientific
treasures which it diffused among an active and intelligent people, and
the impulse which it gave to that direct trade between the Netherlands
and the East which had been so long deferred, and which now came to
relieve the commerce of the republic, and therefore the republic itself,
from the danger of positive annihilation.

It is not necessary for my purpose to describe in detail the series of
voyages by way of the Cape of Good Hope which, beginning with the
adventures of the brothers Houtmann at this period, and with the
circumnavigation of the world by Olivier van Noord, made the Dutch for
a long time the leading Christian nation in those golden regions, and
which carried the United Netherlands to the highest point of prosperity
and power. The Spanish monopoly of the Indian and the Pacific Ocean was
effectually disposed of, but the road was not a new road, nor did any
striking discoveries at this immediate epoch illustrate the enterprise of
Holland in the East. In the age just opening the homely names most dear
to the young republic were to be inscribed on capes, islands, and
promontories, seas, bays, and continents. There was soon to be a "Staten
Island" both in the frozen circles of the northern and of the southern
pole, as well as in that favoured region where now the mighty current of
a worldwide commerce flows through the gates of that great metropolis of
the western world, once called New Amsterdam. Those well-beloved words,
Orange and Nassau, Maurice and William, intermingled with the names of
many an ancient town and village, or with the simple patronymics of hardy
navigators or honoured statesmen, were to make the vernacular of the new
commonwealth a familiar sound in the remotest corners of the earth; while
a fifth continent, discovered by the enterprise of Hollanders, was soon
to be fitly baptized with the name of the fatherland. Posterity has been