relations with him, being well pleased, like so many of those petty
rulers, to obtain protection against the Portuguese whom he had so long
hated and feared. He informed Heemskerk of the arrival in the straits of
Malacca of an immense Lisbon carrack, laden with pearls and spices,
brocades and precious-stones, on its way to Europe, and suggested an
attack. It is true that the roving Hollander merely commanded a couple
of the smallest galleots, with about a hundred and thirty men in the two.
But when was Jacob Heemskerk ever known to shrink from an encounter--
whether from single-handed combat with a polar bear, or from leading a
forlorn hope against a Spanish fort, or from assailing a Portuguese
armada. The carrack, more than one thousand tons burthen, carried
seventeen guns, and at least eight times as many men as he commanded.
Nevertheless, after a combat of but brief duration Heemskerk was master
of the carrack: He spared the lives of his seven hundred prisoners, and
set them on shore before they should have time to discover to what a
handful of Dutchmen they had surrendered. Then dividing about a million
florins' worth of booty among his men, who doubtless found such cruising
among the spice-islands more attractive than wintering at the North Pole,
he sailed in the carrack for Macao, where he found no difficulty in
convincing the authorities of the celestial empire that the friendship of
the Dutch republic was worth cultivating. There was soon to be work in
other regions for the hardy Hollander--such as was to make the name of
Heemskerk a word to conjure with down to the latest posterity. Meantime
he returned to his own country to take part in the great industrial
movements which were to make this year an epoch in commercial history.

The conquerors of Mendoza and deliverers of Bantam had however not paused
in their work. From Java they sailed to Banda; and on those volcanic
islands of nutmegs and cloves made, in the name of their commonwealth,
a treaty with its republican antipodes. For there was no king to be