return, to supply them with provisions and Hindoostan manufactures at a fair price, in exchange for their peculiar productions, nutmegs and mace.  They were likewise authorised, if they procured the consent of the natives, to establish fortified stations, or factories, at Puloroon, Puloway.  Pulo-Lantore, and Rosinging, or Rosengin.[255] The views of the Bantam factory on this occasion seem to have been generally judicious, as to the measure they now authorised, but exceedingly ill judged in attempting to execute so very important a purpose with a force entirely inadequate to that with which it had to contend.

[Footnote 255:  An. of E.I.  Co.  I. 187.]

The Dutch had expelled the Portuguese, at that time the subjects of their tyrannical oppressors, the Spaniards, from a great portion of the spice islands, in which warlike measure, and its consequences, they had always to support a considerable force, both naval and military, in these seas, and in various forts upon these islands; and besides, that they felt their preponderance from these circumstances, and used it very naturally for their own exclusive benefit, they alleged, and with no small appearance of equity, that the English had no right to enjoy the advantages of a trade, which they, the Dutch, had conquered from the Portuguese and Spaniards.  This opposition of interests proceeded in the sequel to great extremities, in which the greatly superior power of the Hollanders in these seas, enabled them effectually to oppress the English, in what are peculiarly called the spice islands, and even to expel them from all participation in that trade, as will appear in some of the subsequent sections of this chapter.

It would be not only premature in this place, but incompatible with the nature of our work, which is intended as a Collection of Voyages and Travels, to attempt giving a connected history of these dissensions between the Dutch and English in Eastern India, which will be found detailed in the Annals of the English Company.  It is hardly possible, however, to refrain from one observation on the subject,—­that the Dutch company, and the government of Holland, appear to have mainly proceeded, in their hostile opposition to the English East India trade, on their knowledge of the pusillanimous character of King James, which he vainly thought to veil under the pretensions of loving peace, but which the Dutch, as will be seen in the present section, clearly understood, and openly expressed, as the childhood of St George, the tutelary martial saint of England. Beati pacifici, his favourite adage, is an excellent Christian and moral sentiment, but is incompatible with the unavoidable exigencies of government, at least as they were then situated.—­E.

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May it please your Worships,