change of tone, goes on to give the prices of commodities and the colours of cloths that will not keep fast in an Indian climate.
By 1615 the trade of Portugal had, we are told, infinitely decayed; and the Spanish government showed very little concern at the rapid impoverishment of that kingdom. In Holland, on the contrary, the Republic looked upon its East India trade as "a high point of state," and assisted the Company with great sums of money. But the substitution of Dutchmen for Portuguese as our rivals in this part of the world was by no means an advantage to us. Their estrangement from England, originally caused by the wavering policy of the first two Stuarts, who leaned first toward Spain and afterwards toward France, was undoubtedly fostered by growing commercial jealousies. Thenceforward, throughout the seventeenth century, the annals of East Indian affairs record a continuous persevering contest between the English and Dutch for advantage in the Indian trade, and for possession of the settlements that were necessary to its existence. The Dutch had gradually annexed most of the principal Portuguese settlements; they asserted paramount European power in all those seas and islands; so that they constantly came into sharp collision with the English, who were still weak in those regions, and whose merchant adventurers were ill supported by the vacillating and unpopular government of James I and his son Charles.
It should be understood that the term "East Indies," according to the nomenclature of those days,
