Dutch East India Company

“ The Dutch East India Company charter was granted in 1602, to trade to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magellan for twenty-one years, and no other of the East India companies has been so successfully managed. The Dutch have derived large revenue from the islands they still hold there, viz.: Java, the Moluccas or Spice islands, a large part of Borneo, Sumatra, Celebes and several small islands in the Malay Archipelago. ”

“ They are chiefly memorable as having laid the foundation of the vast trade out of which the republic was to derive so much material power, while at the same time they mark the slight beginnings of that mighty monopoly, the Dutch East India Company, which was to teach such tremendous lessons in commercial restriction to a still more colossal English corporation, that mercantile tyrant only in our own days overthrown. ”

“ The Dutch East India Company was clothed with extraordinary powers and privileges and became very wealthy; not alone in the pursuit of the East India trade, but by capturing in the West Indies galleons containing great quantities of gold and silver, which the Spaniards, by the most cruel methods, had taken in Mexico and Peru. ”

“ But our navigators that way have been confined to the roads of trade, and our discoveries bounded by what we can manage to a certain degree of gain. And I have heard it said among the Dutch, that their East India Company have long since forbidden, and under the greatest penalties, any further attempts of discovering that continent, having already more trade in those parts than they can turn to account, and fearing some more populous nation of Europe might make great establishments of trade in some of those unknown regions, which might ruin or impair what they have already in the Indies. ”

“ The disputes with the Dutch, however, now grew to such a height as greatly to embarrass the trade. Commissioners were actually appointed by the governments of the two countries to endeavour to bring about an amicable arrangement; and the Dutch proposed that the English East India Company and theirs should carry on the trade as a joint concern, a plan which, it was urged, would enable them effectually to subdue their common enemy the Portuguese, and to exclude all other nations from getting any footing in India ”

“ However, as these native rulers receive good salaries and are allowed to exact homage from their subjects, they seem quite content with their lot, and the people, naturally docile, yield obedience to the chiefs of their own race.
The culture system, aside from the indirect method of ruling, is the distinguishing feature of Dutch colonialism as it existed until recent [221] years. The East India Company followed the practice of the native princes and collected a land tax or rent of one-fifth the crop, and required in addition the labor of all able-bodied males for one day in five. ”

“ Her king and the directors of her India Company had no higher ambition than to enter into a close alliance with the Dutch Company, and to secure by this means a stated proportion of the trade of the East. In the Netherlands also a large and influential party was in favour of either forming a federated company, or of a binding union of some kind, so as to{161} put it out of the power of the Spaniards and Portuguese to harm them. ”

“ These instances might be multiplied, and it is no wonder that the United Provinces convinced the princes and people of the Spice Islands that Holland could protect them against the Spaniards and Portuguese. By 1605, the Dutch had succeeded in expelling their enemies from the district which they coveted. It is no marvel that when the negotiations for peace began, they resolutely refused to relinquish their East India trade. ”

“ These, in the almost total absence of vegetables and modern condiments were the choicest flavours which men desired some centuries ago, and the Dutch tried to appropriate the whole supply. The English, who were at this time almost the only rivals of the Dutch in the East, for the Portuguese trade was well-nigh ruined, determined that they should not have this monopoly, and during the first half of the seventeenth century, the East India Company in England had been making considerable progress. ”

“ With a simplicity, amazing only to those who are inclined to be vain of a superior wisdom—not their own but that of their wisest contemporaries—one of the chief reasons for establishing the East India Company was stated to be the necessity of providing against low prices of Oriental productions in Europe. ”

“ But national instinct is often wiser than what is supposed to be high national statesmanship, and there can be no doubt that the true foundation of the East India Company was the simple recognition of an iron necessity. Every merchant in Holland knew full well that the Portuguese and Spaniards could never be driven out of their commercial strongholds under the equator, except by a concentration of the private strength and wealth, of the mercantile community. ”

“ The strangeness of the merchants' hostility is hardly apparent, but it is not too much to say that Itimad Khan's friendly behaviour alone saved English trade from extinction. The Dutch, always hostile in the East, whatever might be the relations between Holland and England in Europe, strove to improve the occasion by fomenting popular excitement, and tried to get the English permanently excluded from the Indian trade. ”

“ Their importance also is to be measured not by the meagre official reports and profit and loss accounts that have survived in the West India Company's records, but by the much fuller information to be derived from Spanish and Portuguese sources, as to the remarkable daring and energy of Dutch trading agents in all that portion of the South American continent lying between the rivers Amazon and Orinoco. ”

“ In 1602 the celebrated East India Company was formed under charter granted by the States-General,—the original capital being 6,000,000 guilders, subscribed by the merchants of Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn, Enkhuysen, Middleberg, but above all Amsterdam. They established factories at many places, both on the continent of India and in the islands ”

“ In the closing years of the 16th century several private companies were founded in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Zealand to engage in eastern trade. These were combined in 1602 into the United East Indies Company, which sent large fleets to the Orient each year, easily ousted the Portuguese from their bases on the coast and islands, and soon established almost a monopoly, leaving to England only a small share of trade with Persia and northwest India. ”

“ Ships sailed from Holland to Africa, got slaves in exchange for their goods, carried the slaves to the West Indies or Brazil, and returned home laden with sugar.2 Through the enterprise of one of these trading-companies the settlement of New Amsterdam was begun, in 1614. In 1621 the private companies trading in the West were all merged into the Dutch West India Company, and given a monopoly of American trade. ”

“ The chief factory was at Bantam, but there were many others on the mainland of India, and at Amboina, Banda, Ternate and Matsjan in the Moluccas; and from these centres trade was carried on with Ceylon, with Borneo and even with distant China and Japan. But the position of the company was precarious, until the secret article of the treaty of 1609 conceded liberty of trade during the truce. The chief need was to create a centre of administration, from which a general control could be exercised over all the officials at the various trading factories throughout the East-Indian archipelago. ”

“ Dutch ships and those of other nations were seen daily in her stately harbor; two great Dutch trading companies, the Dutch East India and the Dutch West India, had been lately chartered. Both were desirous to enlist young men in their ranks to settle in the new colonial domains. ”

“ The Dutch had already established important factories both in India itself and in the Spice Islands, and had with success contested with the Portuguese their monopoly of the Indian trade. It was in emulation of the Dutch, and taking advantage of the depression of Portugal, and in pursuance also of their systematic opposition to Spain, that the English Company was formed. ”

“ Barneveld's name and interests were identified with the great East India Company, which was now powerful and prosperous beyond anything ever dreamt of before in the annals of commerce. That trading company had already founded an empire in the East. Fifty ships of war, fortresses guarded by 4000 pieces of artillery and 10,000 soldiers and sailors, obeyed the orders of a dozen private gentlemen at home seated in a back parlour around a green table. The profits of each trading voyage were enormous, and the shareholders were growing rich beyond their wildest imaginings. ”

“ The shiploads of American furs sold in Amsterdam set Dutch money-makers hot on the trail for more. Led by Usselinx, they urged in the State Legislature of Holland that a West India Company be formed. Asia had enriched the Republic. Why should not New Netherland? ”

“ It is the ancient system of countries having possessions in the East, and upon our side we are not able to show any definite reasons in favor of our course of scrupulously keeping separate the Indian revenue, and spending Indian profits upon India and Cinghalese in Ceylon, except such reasons as would logically lead to our quitting India altogether. That the Dutch should make a profit out of Java is perhaps not more immoral than that they should be there. ”