DUTCH INDIA COMPANIES. 361 titles. The native princes pressed upon them from the land. On the sea they gave way to more vigorous European nations. Possessions The only remaining Portuguese possessions in India are Goa, Portuguese Damán, and Diu, all on the west coast, with a total area of 2365 in 1881. square miles, and a total population of 475,172 in 1881.1 The general Census of 1871 also returned 426 Portuguese in British India, not including those of mixed descent. About 30,000 of the latter are found in Bombay (Portuguese' half-castes), and 20,000 in Bengal, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Dacca and Chittagong. The latter are known as Firinghis; and, excepting Mixed dethat they retain the Roman Catholic faith and European sur- scendants. names, they are scarcely to be distinguished either by colour, language, or habits of life from the natives among whom they live. 1602-1824. The Dutch were the first European nation who broke through The Dutch the Portuguese monopoly. During the 16th century, Bruges, in India, Antwerp, and Amsterdam became successively the great emporiums whence Indian produce, imported by the Portuguese, was distributed to Germany, and even to England. At first the Dutch, following in the track of the English, attempted to find their way to India by sailing round the northern coast of Europe and Asia. William Barents is honourably known as the leader of three of these arctic expeditions, in the last of which he perished. India The first Dutchman to double the Cape of Good Hope Dutch was Cornelius Houtman, who reached Sumatra and Bantam Comin 1596. Forthwith private companies for trade with the panies. East were formed in many parts of the United Provinces; but in 1602 they were all amalgamated by the States-General into The Dutch East India Company.' Within fifty years the Dutch had established factories on the continent of 1 This number, 475,172, is the 'actual' population of all the Portuguese Settlements in India, as shown in the General Statement No. 1 of the Census of Portuguese India, taken on the 17th February 1881. The same table shows the 'nominal' population at 481,467. Both these returns differ somewhat from the totals obtained from the detailed tables showing the males and females, age, and civil condition of the people. Thus, the total obtained for Goa is 444,449 from the detailed statements, while the General Statement No. 1 of the Portuguese Settlements shows an 'actual' population for Goa of 413,698 and a 'nominal' population of 420,868. Similar differences on a smaller scale may be detected in the general and detailed statements of the Settlement of Damán. In both cases, the separate articles in The Imperial Gazetteer of India follow the detailed tables of male and female, age, and civil condition; while in general statements of population for Portuguese India, the general totals issued under the authority of the Portuguese Government are accepted. Their progress, 1619. Dutch in eastern 1700. India, in Ceylon, in Sumatra, in the Persian Gulf, and in the Red Sea, besides having obtained exclusive possession of the Moluccas. In 1619 they laid the foundation of the city of Batavia in Java, as the seat of the supreme government of the Dutch possessions in the East Indies, which had previously been at Amboyna. At about the same time the Dutch discovered the coast of Australia; while in North America they founded the city of New Amsterdam or Manhattan, now New York. During the 17th century the Dutch were the foremost marisupremacy time power in the world. Their memorable massacre of the seas, 1600- English at Amboyna, in 1623, forced the British Company to retire from the Eastern Archipelago to the continent of India, and thus led to the foundation of our Indian Empire. The long naval wars and bloody battles between the English and the Dutch within the narrow seas were not terminated until William of Orange united the two countries in 1689. In the Eastern Archipelago the Dutch ruled without a rival, and expelled the Portuguese from almost all their territorial possessions. In 1635 they occupied Formosa; in 1640 they took Malacca, brilliant a blow from which the Portuguese never recovered; in 1647 1635-69. they were trading at Sadras, on the Pálár river; in 1651 they founded a colony at the Cape of Good Hope, as a half-way station to the East; in 1652 they built their first Indian factory at Pálakollu, on the Madras coast; in 1658 they captured Jaffnapatam, the last stronghold of the Portuguese in Ceylon. Between 1661 and 1664 the Dutch wrested from the Portuguese all their earlier settlements on the pepper-bearing coast of Malabar; and in 1669 they expelled the Portuguese from St. Thomé and Macassar. Their progress, Their short sighted policy. The fall of the Dutch colonial empire resulted from its short-sighted commercial policy. It was deliberately based upon a monopoly of the trade in spices, and remained from first to last destitute of sound economical principles. Like the Phoenicians of old, the Dutch stopped short of no acts of cruelty towards their rivals in commerce; but, unlike the Phoenicians, they failed to introduce their civilisation among Stripped the natives with whom they came in contact. The knell of of their Indian possessions, 1759-1811. Dutch supremacy was sounded by Clive, when in 1759 he attacked the Dutch at Chinsurah both by land and water, and forced them to an ignominious capitulation. In the great French wars from 1793 to 1811, England wrested from Holland every one of her colonies; although Java was restored in 1816, and Sumatra exchanged for Malacca in 1824. EARLY ENGLISH EXPLORERS. relics in 363 At present, the Dutch flag flies nowhere on the mainland of Dutch India. But quaint houses, Dutch tiles and carvings, at Chinsurah, India. Negapatam, Jaffnapatam, and at petty ports on the Coromandel and Malabar coast, with the formal canals in some of these old Settlements, remind the traveller of scenes in the Netherlands. The passage between Ceylon and the mainland still bears the name of the Dutch governor, Palk. In the Census of 1872, only 70 Dutchmen were enumerated throughout all British India, and 79 in 1881.1 North-west The earliest English attempts to reach India were made by Early the North-west passage. English In 1496, Henry VII. granted letters advenpatent to John Cabot and his three sons (one of whom turers, was the famous Sebastian) to fit out two ships for the ex- 1496-1596. ploration of this route. They failed, but discovered the island of Newfoundland, and sailed along the coast of America from Labrador to Virginia. In 1553, the ill-fated Sir Hugh The Willoughby attempted to force a passage along the north of passage, Europe and Asia, the successful accomplishment of which 1553-1616. has been reserved for a Swedish savant of our own day. Sir Hugh perished miserably; but his second in command, Chancellor, reached a harbour on the White Sea, now Archangel. Thence he penetrated by land to the court of the Grand Duke of Moscow, and laid the foundation of 'the Russia Company for carrying on the overland trade between India, Persia, Bokhara, and Moscow.' Many English attempts were made to find a North-west Later passage to the East Indies, from 1576 to 1616. They have attempts. left on our modern maps the imperishable names of Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, and Baffin. Meanwhile, in 1577, Sir Francis Drake had circumnavigated the globe, and on his way home. had touched at Ternate, one of the Moluccas, the king of which island agreed to supply the English nation with all the cloves which it produced. The first modern Englishman known to have visited the Stephens, Indian Peninsula was Thomas Stephens, in 1579. William of first Englishman in Malmesbury states, indeed, that in 883 Sighelmus of Sherborne, India, sent by King Alfred to Rome with presents to the Pope, pro- 1579. ceeded thence to India,' to the tomb of St. Thomas, and brought back jewels and spices. But, as already pointed out, it by no means follows that the 'India' of William of 1 For local notices of the Dutch in India, see articles SADRas, PalaKOLLU, CHINSURAH, NEGAPATAM, PALK'S PASSAGE, etc., in their respective volumes of The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Fitch, Malmesbury meant the Indian peninsula. Stephens (1579) was educated at New College, Oxford, and became rector of the Jesuit College in Salsette. His letters to his father are said to have roused great enthusiasm in England to trade directly with India. In 1583, three English merchants, Ralph Fitch, James NewNewberry, berry, and Leedes, went out to India overland as mercantile Leedes, 1583. adventurers. The jealous Portuguese threw them into prison at Ormuz, and again at Goa. At length Newberry settled down as a shopkeeper at Goa; Leedes entered the service of the Great Mughal; and Fitch, after a lengthened peregrination in Ceylon, Bengal, Pegu, Siam, Malacca, and other parts of the East Indies, returned to England.1 Com panies. The defeat of the Invincible Armada' in 1588, at which time the crowns of Spain and Portugal were in union, gave a fresh stimulus to maritime enterprise in England; and the successful voyage of Cornelius Houtman in 1596 showed the way round the Cape of Good Hope, into waters hitherto monopolized by the Portuguese. English The following paragraph on the early history of the English East India East India Companies is condensed, with little change, from Sir George Birdwood's official report. In 1599, the Dutch, who had now firmly established their trade in the East, raised the price of pepper against us from 3s. per lb. to 6s. and 8s. The merchants of London held a meeting on the 22nd September at Founders' Hall, with the Lord Mayor in the chair, and agreed to form an association for the purposes of trading directly with India. Queen Elizabeth also sent Sir John Mildenhall by Constantinople to the Great Mughal to apply for privileges for an English Company. On the 31st December 1600,3 the English East India Company was incorporated by royal charter under the title of 'The Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies.' The original Company had only 125 shareholders, and a capital of £70,000, which was raised to £400,000 in 1612-13, when voyages were first undertaken on the jointstock account. First charter, 31st December 1600. Courten's Association, known as 'The Assada Merchants,' from a factory subsequently founded by it in Madagascar, was 1 Condensed from Report on Old Records in the India Office, pp. 75-77. 2 Condensed from Report on Old Records in the India Office, pp. 77 et seq. 3 Auber gives the date as the 30th December, Analysis of the Constitution of the East India Company, by Peter Auber, Assistant-Secretary to the Honourable Court of Directors, p. ix. (London, 1826). FIRST ENGLISH VOYAGES. com 365 established in 1635, but, after a period of internecine rivalry, Later was united with the London Company in 1650. In 1654-55, panies, the 'Company of Merchant Adventurers' obtained a charter 1635, from Cromwell to trade with India, but united with the 1655, original Company two years later. A more formidable rival subsequently appeared in the English Company, or 'General Society trading to the East Indies,' which was incorporated under powerful patronage in 1698, with a capital of 2 millions 1698, sterling. According to Evelyn, in his Diary for March 5, 1698, 'the old East India Company lost their business against the new Company by 10 votes in Parliament; so many of their friends being absent, going to see a tiger baited by dogs.' However, a compromise was effected through the arbitration of Lord Godolphin1 in 1708; by which the amalgamation of 1708. the 'London' and the 'English' Companies was finally carried Amalgaout in 1709, under the style of The United Company of Company, Merchants of England trading to the East Indies.' About 1709. the same time, the Company advanced loans to the English Government aggregating £3,200,000 at 5 per cent. interest, in return for the exclusive privilege to trade to all places between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan.2 mated 1600-12. The early voyages of the Company from 1600 to 1612 are English distinguished as the 'separate voyages,' twelve in number. Voyages, The subscribers individually bore the expenses of each voyage, and reaped the whole profits. With the exception of the fourth, all these separate voyages were highly prosperous, the profits hardly ever falling below 100 per cent. After 1612, the voyages were conducted on the joint-stock account. voyages, The English were promptly opposed by the Portuguese. First But James Lancaster, even in the first voyage (1601-2), English established commercial relations with the King of Achín and 1601-06. at Priaman in the island of Sumatra; as well as with the Malaccas, and at Bantam in Java, where he settled a 'House of Trade' in 1603. In 1604 the Company undertook their second voyage, commanded by Sir Henry Middleton, who extended their trade to Banda and Amboyna. The success of these voyages attracted a number of private merchants to the business; and in 1606, James I. granted a licence to Sir Edward Michelborne and others to trade 'to Cathay, China, Japan, Corea, and Cambaya.' But Michelborne, on arriving Under the award of Lord Godolphin, by the Act of the 6th of Queen Anne, in 1708, cap. 17. Auber's Analysis, p. xi. Mill, Hist. Brit. Ind., vol. i. p. 151 (ed. 1840). Auber gives a detailed statement of these loans, from 1708 to 1793; Analysis, p. xi. etc. |