Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DUTCH AND ENGLISH. 21 not as springing from the irresponsible actions of men or chance decision of battles. Alfonso de Albuquerque, the next Viceroy, deemed that by the prowess and valour of his European soldiers he could establish a lasting empire for his people in the East. In 1510 he captured Goa, which soon grew to be the wealthiest and most powerful city in the East; he reduced Ormuz, thus closing the Persian Gulf to the Arab traders; he built a fortress at Socotra to command the Red Sea, and left the coast from the Cape of Good Hope to China in- the hands of his successors. Portugal held the commerce of the East, sending its goods north to Bruges, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Nuremberg, and Augsburg, until she became united with Spain in 1580, when the Dutch, who, under William of Orange, had in 1572 shaken off the Spanish yoke, could no longer trade .with Lisbon. It was then that the Dutch, determining not to be deprived of their share in the Eastern trade, sent their navigators to the north-east, hoping to discover some new route to India and Learn something of its commerce. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 left the seas free for the Dutch and English to sail south round the Cape of Good Hope and take part in the commerce of the Eastern world, independent of Portugal. In 1595 one Jan Huygen van Linschoten, a West Friesland burgher, who had travelled to India with the Archbishop of Goa, returned home after thirteen years’ residence in the East and published a celebrated book, in which he gave a full account of the route to India as well as of the commerce carried on there by the Portuguese. In 1595 the Dutch despatched four ships under Cornelius Houtman to sail round the Cape of Good Hope; in 1602 trading factories were set up in Ceylon and along the west coa…
