Independent efforts had been made by the English to get a share of the riches of the East long before the Dutch and English East India companies were formed. In 1560, the Portuguese ambassador exhibited articles for restraining the traffic of English merchants in the Indies. In 1566, “Dr. Lewes takes bonds of George Fenner not to spoil any of the Queen’s subjects, nor to traffic into India, or any other places privileged by the King of Spain.” About the same date, the merchants petitioned “for reopening the trade with Portugal suspended in consequence of the irregular trade of some Englishmen to the Indies.”
Instances of poaching and piracy in Portuguese preserves might be multiplied, but three will suffice. In 1598, Cecil receives a report from a Lisbon agent that, “On August 1st, three carracks arrived from India and one was burnt there full laden. They bring news that two English ships in India have taken two Portugal ships, rich with treasure, that were on their voyage from Goa to Chine.” And again, on October 16, 1601, Sir John Gilbert writes to Cecil: “My ship ... has brought home silks, having taken a Brazil vessel with porcelain and other wares.”
Elizabeth’s luxurious ministers had choice collections of porcelain richly mounted in precious metal, from which they sometimes offered her presents. For instance, among her New Year’s gifts in 1588, we find: “One porrynger of white porselyn, garnished with golde, the cover of golde, with a lyon on the toppe thereof; all given by the Lord Threasorour, 38 oz. Item, one cup of green pursselyne, the foot, shanke and cover silver guilte chased like droppes. Given by Mr. Robert Cecill, 15 oz. Item, one cup of pursseline, th’ one side paynted red, the foote and cover sylver guilte. Given by Mr. Lychfelde, 14 oz.”
It is natural that from the fact that the Portuguese had the monopoly of the East Indian trade, the finest examples of Oriental workmanship should be found in Portugal and Spain, Lisbon being the _entrepôt_ of European distribution. The Spanish dominions in the Low Countries were well supplied with these wares by the Dutch mariners.
During the sixteenth century, the Dutch were already famed as sea-carriers (_rouliers des mers_). With Lisbon as a base of supplies, they soon destroyed the monopoly of the trade in Oriental wares which Venice had so long enjoyed. When Philip II annexed Portugal in 1580, however, he naturally sought to take revenge on his rebellious subjects of the Low Countries by closing against them the ports of the Iberian peninsula.