A serious rival was, however, in the field. The separation of the Dutch provinces from the crown of Spain had caused their merchants to be sent abroad to seek new fields of commerce, and as they had gained an intimate knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese affairs, they were then the predominant naval power in the Indian Seas, and were quite ready to contend against any supremacy on the part of England’s traders. English merchants were, however, ready for them, the profits on the first expedition having incited them to grander efforts. They obtained a new Charter in 1609, and the Company constructed a vessel of larger size than any hitherto employed in the English merchant service, which they named the _Trades’ Increase_. She was 1,200 tons, and even her pinnace was 250 tons. At her launch, the Company gave a great banquet, at which the dishes were of china ware, then a great novelty in England. With these and two other vessels Sir Henry Middleton set sail, touching at Mocha, on the Red Sea, where, entrapped ashore by the Mohammedans, eighty of his crew were massacred, sixteen others disabled, and he himself severely wounded. Proceeding to Bantam, the _Trades’ Increase_ was unfortunately shipwrecked, and poor Middleton died heartbroken at the failure of the expedition. But other voyages followed, which were enormously profitable to the Company. One expedition is mentioned which, “though absent only twenty months, earned in that time a profit of no less than 340 per cent.” “Factories”—trading posts or forts—were established, and the Company obtained the favour of the Moghul Emperor, Jehangir, more especially after they had been fortunate enough to repel some of the Portuguese who were attacking his posts. They even contrived to obtain a footing in Japan, through the influence of William Adams, a Kentish man, who had been pilot on one of the earliest Dutch expeditions, and who stood high in the Emperor’s favour. The intercourse then opened was allowed to die out, and has only been re-established late in our own time. In seventeen years after the first establishment of the Company its affairs had become so prosperous that its stock reached a premium of 203 per cent., and the Dutch East India Company suggested an amalgamation of the two corporations with a view to exclude and crush their common enemy, the Portuguese. This was never carried into effect, but in 1619 a treaty of trade and friendship was established. They were to “cease from rivalry, and apportion the profits of the different branches of commerce between them.” Alas! all this amicable billing and cooing were to speedily end; such self-abnegation was found hardly practicable between business rivals. A series of hostilities ensued in the following year; a number of Englishmen were massacred by the Dutch at Amboyna, and sea-fights occurred between the vessels; the result being that the Dutch had it all their own way in a few years afterwards. The directors of the English Company even meditated winding up its affairs. Something similar happened more than once afterwards before they became a grand company and the real governors of India. The rise of British power there is one of those surprising revolutions which never before occurred in history. The managers of a trading company in London first became the lords of a manor a dozen times the size of England, and controlled the destinies of kings and princes, engaging in war or peace as occasion seemed to demand. Think of the affairs of a great country settled in a counting-house! But at length the anomaly had to cease, and, as most readers will remember, the East India Company lost its powers and privileges in 1858, and ceased to exist as a governing body. Retiring allowances were made to commanders and officers. It may be interesting to note that up to 1814 trade with India, so long a jealously-guarded monopoly with the Company, was thrown open to private competition, but that they retained the exclusive trade with China for a long period after that date.