found in that particular archipelago, and the two republics, the Oriental
and the Germanic, dealt with each other with direct and becoming
simplicity. Their convention was in accordance with the commercial
ideas of the day, which assumed monopoly as the true basis of national
prosperity. It was agreed that none but Dutchmen should ever purchase
the nutmegs of Banda, and that neither nation should harbour refugees
from the other. Other articles, however; showed how much farther, the
practice of political and religious liberty had advanced than had any
theory of commercial freedom. It was settled that each nation should
judge its own citizens according to its own laws, that neither should
interfere by force with the other in regard to religious matters, but
that God should be judge over them all. Here at least was progress
beyond the system according to which the Holy Inquisition furnished the
only enginry of civilization. The guardianship assumed by Holland over
these children of the sun was at least an improvement on the tyranny
which roasted them alive if they rejected religious dogmas which they
could not comprehend, and which proclaimed with fire, sword, and gibbet
that the Omnipotent especially forbade the nutmeg trade to all but the
subjects, of the most Catholic king.

In Atsgen or Achim, chief city of Sumatra, a treaty was likewise made
with the government of the place, and it was arranged that the king of
Atsgen should send over an embassy to the distant but friendly republic.
Thus he might judge whether the Hollanders were enemies of all the world,
as had been represented to him, or only of Spain; whether their knowledge
of the arts and sciences, and their position among the western nations
entitled them to respect, and made their friendship desirable; or whether
they were only worthy of the contempt which their royal and aristocratic
enemies delighted to heap upon their heads. The envoys sailed from
Sumatra on board the same little fleet which, under the command of