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The modern era of maritime discovery may be said to begin with the work of Prince Henry of Portugal, surnamed "The Navigator" (1394-1460). Prince Henry devoted his life to the furtherance of geographical discovery. He was inspired by the hope of finding the sea-route to the East, and winning for his country the rich trade of India and Cathay. During forty years he sent out from Lagos fleet after fleet bound for the exploration of the coasts of Africa. Further and further south into the unknown and dreaded Atlantic his caravels pushed their way, until at his death, in 1460, his captains had reached the mouth of the Gambia beyond Cape Verde, and had colonised the Azores. The discoveries made under this Prince's inspiring influence were the stepping-stone to the great voyages which marked the close of the century. Following the initiative of Henry, the bold genius of Columbus conceived the splendid idea of finding the East by sailing west; and, in 1492, when he fell upon America, he believed that he had reached the further shores of India. Five years later Henry's countryman, Vasco da Gama, in a voyage almost as important as that of Columbus, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and opened the gates of the sea-way to Calicut and the East. Pope Alexander the Sixth by his famous Bull apportioned the world between the discoverers--allotting the western half to Spain, and the eastern to Portugal. From that time the gold and silver of the West were poured into the lap of Spain while Portugal gathered in as her sole property the rich profits of the coveted trade of the East. For well nigh a century the two nations enjoyed a practical monopoly of the regions which the daring of their sailors had won. Spain, in particular, through the wealth she acquired from her American possessions, became the dominant power in the world, and the mistress of the sea. Her fall from that high eminence was due to her arrogant greed for universal dominion, and her attempt to crush a free nation of traders.

In the 15th and 16th centuries the Netherlands--the Low Countries of common English parlance--were the most prosperous nation in Europe. While other nations exhausted themselves in war, they devoted themselves to the arts of peace. In agriculture they were far in advance of all other countries of the time, The Flemish weavers were the first in

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the world, and their looms supplied England and all Europe with the best linen and woollen fabrics. In an age when salted provisions were almost the sole winter diet of all classes, the fisheries of the North Sea were nearly as important as the manufactures of Flanders. These fisheries were well nigh monopolised by the Hollanders, and were a rich mine of wealth to the northern towns, while they trained a hardy and daring race of sailors. In addition to their manufactures and their fisheries, the Dutch had become the traders and carriers of the European world. It was Dutch ships and Dutch sailors that distributed throughout Europe the treasures brought by Spanish and Portuguese fleets from the East and West Indies.

The Netherlands were an appanage of the Spanish crown. But, the rich manufacturing and trading cities of Flanders and Holland enjoyed considerable liberties and powers of local self-government, granted to them from time to time by their over-lords in exchange for heavy annual payments. It was the attempt of the Spanish king Philip the Second to abolish the charters of their towns, to stamp out their liberties, and to suppress the Reformed Religion by means of the Inquisition, that led to the rise of the Dutch Republic, and the long and cruel war with the revolted Provinces, which lasted eighty years (1566-1648), and finally resulted in the humiliation of Spain.

The Dutch revolt forms one of the most striking epochs in history. It was the first blow struck in modern times for human freedom and liberty of conscience against the despotism of kings and the intolerance of priests. The power of the strongest empire in the world was put forth to crush the revolted citizens. Treachery, torture, and massacre were freely and ruthlessly employed. The butcheries of the Duke of Alva still stand out pre-eminent in the bloody annals of tyranny and persecution. The story, as we read it in the graphic pages of Motley, bristles with deeds of ferocious cruelty and blood.

The struggle would have been hopeless, but that their extremity taught the Dutch to find their strength upon the sea. Powerless before their enemies on land, the patriots took to the ocean. In small vessels their hardy sailors cut off the Spanish supplies, made daring descents on sea-coast towns; and in process of time set themselves to work to strike Spain in her most vulnerable part, her commerce with the New World, from which she drew her wealth. The Beggars of the Sea, as the Dutch rovers styled themselves, became the terror of the richly laden galleons and haughty fleets of Spain. Not only did they cut off the supplies of gold and silver from the New World on which the Spanish King depended,

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but in the spoils which they wrested from the enemy and in the trade which they were continually extending they found the means for their country to carry on the conflict. England, almost equally in danger from Spanish designs, made common cause against the enemy. Even when the countries were not at open war, Drake and the English seamen acknowledged no peace with Spain beyond the Line, but captured her ships `and sacked her settlements on the Spanish Main, returning home laden with treasure. Foiled in his disastrous attempt to conquer England with his Great Armada, Philip was equally unsuccessful in his efforts to destroy the Dutch commerce. In vain did he prohibit the Hollanders from trading with his dominions. In vain did he from time to time lay embargoes on their ships, and send thousands of their sailors to languish in the dungeons of the Inquisition. The bold Hollanders only replied by vigorous reprisals. They mocked at his prohibitions, and continued to carry on an ever increasing and enormously profitable illicit trade. Dutch and English privateers triumphantly swept the seas and harried the Spaniards at their pleasure. Subjugated Flanders had become an obedient Spanish province; her rich merchants had fled, and her people were starving in a desolated country. But the unconquered United Provinces of the north were actually profiting by the war, and every day growing richer and more powerful.

The long struggle on the seas, and its successful issue, roused both in England and Holland an insatiable spirit of adventure. In England this spirit found its outlet in privateering or piratical exploits, such as those of Hawkins and Drake; or in romantic expeditions, such as that of Raleigh to Guiana; and led, in its ultimate development, to the establishment of our Colonial and Indian Empire.

In Holland the adventurous spirit received a strong stimulus from the blind and stupid policy of the Spanish king. For a hundred years--ever since the discovery of the Cape route to the East Indies--Lisbon had been the great centre of the eastern trade. It was thither the Dutch traders came to bring wheat, fish, and other products of Northern Europe, and to carry away in return and distribute the spices and merchandise of the East. In 1594 Philip--who had some time before acquired the crown of Portugal--closed the port of Lisbon, and prohibited Dutch and English ships, even under a neutral flag, from trading with any part of his empire. The blow not only failed of its effect, but recoiled on the striker. It ruined Lisbon; crippled Spain; and made the Dutch East Indian Empire. With a sagacious daring the Hollanders immediately formed the steady resolve to find these eastern

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treasures for themselves, and wrest the trade from their enemies.

Their first attempt to reach the Indies was discouraging. It was a favourite idea in those days that a short and practicable route to China and India could be found by the north-east passage round the north of Europe. To find this passage and take the Portuguese in the rear was the object of the first Dutch enterprise. The expedition proved disastrous getting no further than Nova Zembla. Two subsequent expeditions in the same direction met with no better fate.

Baffled in their efforts to find a passage through the frozen seas of the North, the Dutch turned their attention to the old route round the Cape. The merchants of Amsterdam formed a company, under the quaint name of "The Company of Far Lands," and fitted out four vessels, the largest 400 tons, and the smallest only 30 tons burden. The little fleet-sailed from the Texel 2nd April, 1595. After a fifteen months' voyage it reached Java, and laid the foundation of the Dutch eastern trade. From this time numerous new companies were formed in Holland: every year fresh fleets left for the east, many of them returning with rich cargoes, and making enormous profits. In spite of the violent attacks of the Spaniards and Portuguese, the Dutch steadily pushed their way in the Eastern Archipelago, and made reprisals on their enemies with telling effect. Their humane and prudent conduct contributed greatly to their success in establishing trade relations with the native princes, by whom the Portuguese were detested for their cruelty, arrogance, and overbearing behaviour.

The English had now entered into competition with the Dutch in the India trade, and in 1600 the first English East India Company was founded. But the English company found their rivals too powerful. In 1602 the various companies in Holland agreed to cease their mutual competition and unite. This was the beginning of the famous Dutch East India Company, which, on 20th March, 1602, received from the States-General a charter for twenty-one years, giving it an exclusive monopoly of the trade with the East. The company had a capital of six and a half millions of florins or £550,000, more than eight times that of its English rival. It was managed by a body of seventeen directors, known as the Council of Seventeen.

The Dutch had already (1602) established themselves permanently in Java. Here they founded the city of Batavia, which became the centre of their trade and the residence of the Governor-General of their Eastern possessions. They established factories in Malabar, drove the Spaniards from Amboyna

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and took possession of the island, wrested Malacca from the Portuguese, and expelled the same nation froth the Moluccas or Spice Islands. In 1621, less than twenty years after its foundation, the Company had a practical monopoly of the trade in cloves, nutmegs, cinnamon, and other products of the Archipelago. The Portuguese had been driven out, and, England only waged an obstinate but unsuccessful rivalry. In 1638 the Dutch supplanted the Portuguese in Japan, and in 1656 got possession of the island of Ceylon.

In a work by Sir Walter Raleigh, entitled "Observations touching Trade and Commerce with the Hollanders and other Nations," presented to King James in the year 1603, we find a striking picture of the commerce of the Netherlands as compared with that of England.

Raleigh attributes the sudden and astonishing rise of the Netherlanders, among other causes, to the "embargoing and confiscating of their ships in Spain, which constrained them, and gave them courage to trade by force into the East and West Indies, and in Africa, where they employ 180 ships and 8700 mariners." (This, it should be noted, was only seven years after the first Dutch vessel had reached Java.) Sir Walter gives a number of interesting particulars respecting the extent of Dutch trade. He says, "We send into the Eastern kingdoms [of Europe] yearly but 100 ships; the Low Countries 3000. They send into France, Portugal, and Italy from the Eastern kingdoms through the Sound and our narrow seas 2000 ships; we, none. They trade with 500 or 600 ships into our country; we, with 40 ships to three of their towns. They have as many ships as eleven kingdoms of Christendom, let England be one. They build yearly 1000 ships, having not one timber tree growing in their own country, nor home-bred commodities to lade 100 ships, yet they have 20,000 ships and vessels, and all employed." In shipbuilding and seamanship also the Dutch sailors in those days were the superiors of the English, for Sir Walter says that while an English ship of a hundred tons required a crew of thirty men, the Hollanders would sail a ship of the same size with ten men.

We are accustomed to dwell on the naval exploits of Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, on the enterprise of the Elizabethan sailors and merchant-adventurers, and on the marvellous success of-our own great East India Company. We have good reason to feel pride in the deeds of the gallant English seamen of those days, and in the trade which in later times has carried the English flag into every sea. But we are apt to forget how comparatively recent is the predominant position of England in commerce and in naval power. In the 17th

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century it was the Dutch who were the sailors and the merchants of the world and the masters of the sea. Not London, but Amsterdam, was the great emporium for the products of East and West, the centre of the world's trade, and the richest city on the globe. The commerce of Europe and of the world was in the hands of the merchants of the Low Countries, who had a hundred ships afloat for every one owned by Englishmen.