Losses of the East India Company.
Thus, in a few years after the conclusion of a treaty
which professed so much and performed so little for
the benefit of either party, the Dutch had gained
so complete an ascendency over the English traders,
that, notwithstanding their valuable acquisition of
the island of Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, and the
prospect of still being able to conduct a lucrative
trade with the East, the Directors seriously meditated
relinquishing all they had gained, and liquidating
the affairs of the Company. They had already
abandoned their scheme of the Greenland[1] fishery,
which had been incongruously intermingled with
their East Indian adventures, and had withdrawn
from Japan, notwithstanding the great encouragement
they had received for the prosecution of
its valuable trade. With an increased capital of
more than one million and a half, their stock had
decreased one half in value, and so powerful had the
Dutch now become, that the Company for the time
seems to have lost all hope of being able to compete
against them and the Portuguese, who still maintained
an important position in India. This great
rivalry for maritime supremacy, which commenced
during the reign of Elizabeth, formed one of the
most important subjects for discussion during the
whole lifetime of her successor.[2]*
- ↑ The English Greenland fisheries seem to have paid best between 1598 to 1612.—Macpherson, ii. p. 265.
- ↑ However great our objections to every form of monopoly, it may well be questioned whether the merchant shipping of England could at this period have made any advance against the Dutch, Spaniards, Portuguese, Venetians, and others in their commercial intercourse with the East unless some inducement had been offered to great corporations to take the first and most hazardous risks of competing with established rivals. Indeed, most persons in England at this time felt,
