on a great trade, especially to the Baltic, is confirmed by Guicciardini; according to him, about the year 1559, they brought annually from Denmark, Eastland, Livonia, and Poland, 60,000 lasts of grain, chiefly rye, worth 560,000_l_.  Flemish.  They had above 800 ships from 200 to 700 tons burden:  fleets of 300 ships arrived twice a year from Dantzic and Livonia at Amsterdam, where there were often seeing lying at the same time 500 vessels, most of them belonging to it.  He mentions Veer in Zealand (Campveer) as at that time being the staple port for all the Scotch shipping, and owing its principal commerce to that circumstance.

The destruction of Antwerp brought to Amsterdam, along with other branches of commerce, the valuable trade which the former city had with Portugal for the produce and manufactures of India; these the Dutch merchants resold to all the nations of the north.  As soon, however, as Philip II. had obtained possession of the throne of Portugal in 1580, he put a stop to all further commerce between Lisbon and the Dutch.  The latter, having tasted the sweets of this commerce, resolved to attempt a direct trade to India.  We have already mentioned the voyages of Barentz in search of a north-east passage; these proving unsuccessful, the Dutch began to despair of reaching India, except by the Cape of Good Hope; and this voyage they were afraid to undertake, having, at this time, neither experienced seamen nor persons acquainted with Indian commerce.  A circumstance, however, occurred while Barentz was in search of a north-west passage, which determined them to sail to India by the Cape.  One Houlman, a Dutchman, who had been in the Portuguese Indian service, but was then confined in Lisbon for debt, proposed to the merchants of Rotterdam, if they could liberate him, to put them in possession of all he knew respecting Indian commerce; his offer was accepted, and four ships were sent to India in 1594 under his command.  The adventurers met with much opposition from the Portuguese in India, so that their voyage was not very successful or lucrative:  they returned, however, in twenty-nine months with a small quantity of pepper from Java, where they had formed a friendly communication with the natives.  The arrival of the Dutch in India,—­the subjugation of Portugal by Spain, which circumstance dispirited and weakened the Portuguese, and the greater attention which the Spaniards were disposed to pay to their American than their Indian commerce, seem to have been the causes which produced the ruin of the Portuguese in India, and the establishment of the Dutch.

The Dutch pushed their new commerce with great vigour and zeal.  In the year 1600 eight ships entered their ports laden with cinnamon, pepper, cloves, nutmegs, and mace:  the pepper they obtained at Java, the other spices at the Moluccas, where they were permitted by the natives, who had driven out the Portuguese, to establish factories.