Chapter VIII

Before we follow Philip Vanderdecken in his venturous career, it will be necessary to refresh the memory of our readers by a succinct recapitulation of the circumstances that had directed the enterprise of the Dutch towards the country of the East, which was now proving to them a source of wealth which they considered as inexhaustible.

Let us begin at the beginning.  Charles the Fifth, after having possessed the major part of Europe, retired from the world, for reasons best known to himself, and divided his kingdoms between Ferdinand and Philip.  To Ferdinand he gave Austria and its dependencies; to Philip Spain; but to make the division more equal and palatable to the latter, he threw the Low Countries, with the few millions vegetating upon them, into the bargain.  Having thus disposed of his fellow-mortals much to his own satisfaction, he went into a convent, reserving for himself a small income, twelve men, and a pony.  Whether he afterwards repented his hobby, or mounted his pony, is not recorded; but this is certain—­that in two years he died.

Philip thought (as many have thought before and since) that he had a right to do what he pleased with his own.  He therefore took away from the Hollanders most of their liberties:  to make amends, however, he gave them the Inquisition; but the Dutch grumbled, and Philip, to stop their grumbling, burnt a few of them.  Upon which, the Dutch, who are aquatic in their propensities, protested against a religion which was much too warm for their constitutions.  In short, heresy made great progress; and the Duke of Alva was despatched with a large army, to prove to the Hollanders that the Inquisition was the very best of all possible arrangements, and that it was infinitely better that a man should be burnt for half-an-hour in this world than for eternity in the next.

This slight difference of opinion was the occasion of a war, which lasted about eight years, and which, after having saved some hundreds of thousands the trouble of dying in their beds, at length ended in the Seven United Provinces being declared independent.  Now we must go back again.

For a century after Vasco de Gama had discovered the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese were not interfered with by other nations.  At last the adventurous spirit of the English nation was roused.  The passage to India by the Cape had been claimed by the Portuguese as their sole right, and they defended it by force.  For a long time no private company ventured to oppose them, and the trade was not of that apparent value to induce any government to embark in a war upon the question.  The English adventurers, therefore, turned their attention to the discovery of a north-west passage to India, with which the Portuguese could have no right to interfere, and in vain attempts to discover that passage, the best part of the fifteenth century was employed.  At last they abandoned their endeavours, and resolved no longer to be deterred by the Portuguese pretensions.