70 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO its allegiance to Portugal and promised fidelity to the Dutch. Of scarcely less importance than the Malacca pas- sage between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, which thus came into Dutch keeping, were the Straits of Sunda between Sumatra and Java. This narrow open- ing formed an alternative entrance through the belt of long islands into the Archipelago, and the Dutch Com- pany resolved to secure the command of it. Bantam, on the northwestern point of Java, dominated its exit into the inner sea of islands. Even before the United Company's first voyage, ihe " separate " Dutch com- manders had made a compact with the Raja of Bantam for " mutual honest trade," and the subsequent treaties with Bantam fill many pages of the India Office records. In 1609, by an engagement known as the " Eternal Treaty," the Dutch agreed to aid the Bantam raja against foreign enemies, particularly the Spanish and Portuguese, and his state slowly passed into a depen- dency of Holland. The Dutch perceived, however, that the mouth of the Jacatra River, with its spacious bay, a little to the east of Bantam, afforded superior con- venience for shipping. In 1612 a treaty secured free trade to the Dutch at Jacatra, and after a scuffle with the English, the Dutch destroyed the old Javanese town, rebuilt it under the name of Batavia, and made it their headquarters in the East (1619). The clearness of vision which led them to secure the two main inlets into the Archipelago (the Straits of Malacca and the Straits of Sunda) also guided the
