The Dutch having thrown off the Spanish yoke at home, applied themselves diligently to commerce; and they would have continued to purchase from the Spaniards and Portuguese, the commodities of the eastern and western worlds, to supply their customers therewith;—but Philip II., smarting under the loss of the Netherlands, and being master of both Spain and Portugal, commanded his subjects to hold no dealings with his hated enemies. Passion and resentment are the worst of counsellors, and Philip soon found it so in this instance. The Dutch, denied Indian goods in Portugal, determined to seek them in India itself. They had renounced papal as well as Spanish authority, and had no scruples about interfering with the pope’s grant of the east to the Portuguese. They soon, therefore, made their appearance in the Indian seas, and found the Portuguese so thoroughly detested there, that nothing was easier for them than to avenge past injuries and prohibitions, by supplanting them. It was only in 1594 that Philip issued his impolitic order that they should not be permitted to receive goods from Portuguese ports,—and by 1602, under their admirals, Houtman and Van Neck, they had visited Madagascar, the Maldives, and the isles of Sunda; they had entered into alliance with the principal sovereigns of Java; established factories in several of the Moluccas, and brought home abundance of pepper, spices, and other articles. Numerous trading companies were organized; and these all united by the policy of the States-general into the one memorable one of the East India Company, the model and original of all the numerous ones that sprung up, and especially of the far greater one under the same name, of England. The natives of India had now a similar spectacle exhibited to their eyes, which South America had about the same period—the Christian nations, boasting of their superior refinement and of their heavenly religion, fighting like furies, and intriguing like fiends one against another. But the Portuguese were now become debauched and effeminate, and were unsupported by fresh reinforcements from Europe; the Dutch were spurred on by all the ardour of united revenge, ambition, and the love of gain. The time was now come when the Portuguese were to expiate their perfidy, their robberies, and their cruelties; and the prediction of one of the kings of Persia was fulfilled, who, asking an ambassador just arrived at Goa, how many governors his master had beheaded since the establishment of his power in India, received for answer—“none at all.” “So much the worse,” replied the monarch, “his authority cannot be of long duration in a country where so many acts of outrage and barbarity are committed.”