218 THE FIEST ENGLISH EAST INDIA COMPANY which we have seen inaugurated by Houtman in 1595, were at once recognized as attacks upon united Portugal and Spain. In September, 1598, great preparations against the Flemings in the Indian Archipelago were reported from Lisbon to Cecil. This was no mere " Por- tugal brag," as the correspondent supposed. During the previous summer Philip II had ordered his Indian fleet to close in on the Hollanders at the Straits of Malacca, and to impress whatever private shipping might there be found to aid in their destruction. Portu- guese influence with the native princes was to be vig- orously directed to shut out the Dutch. No wonder the separate states of Holland felt that something more than their individual support to the various Dutch companies was demanded. In 1602 all the local groups of the East India adventurers in the United Provinces were amalgamated into one powerful company by the States-General with the enormous joint capital of 6,500,- 000 florins, say 540,000, if we take the florin at twenty pence at that time, and administered under the super- vision of a central board of representatives from the subscribing states. This nationalizing of the Dutch East Indian trade carries us three years beyond the meeting of the Lon- don merchants in September, 1599. But from Hout- man 's first voyage in 1595, the influences which ren- dered such a centralization inevitable were at work in Holland. Before describing the feebler corporate system which the English adventurers worked out for themselves, it is needful to understand what a united
