And this same eminent manager of the Company’s interests in India lived to see at the end of his official career far narrower views about colonial policy not only take root in the mother-country (where isolated opinions that way had found utterance long before), but even get the upper hand in the Company’s councils.  Van Diemen’s policy came ultimately to be condemned in the Netherlands, whatever homage might there be paid to his eminent talents, whatever acknowledgment vouchsafed to his great merits!  It may almost be called a matter of course that great differences of opinions were bound surely, if slowly, to crop up between the Managers on one hand, and able Governors-General on the other, touching the line of conduct to be followed by the Netherlanders in the East.  The Managers were in the first place the directors of a trading company:  they hardly looked beyond the requirements of a purely mercantile policy.  Eminent Governors-General on the contrary were conscious {Page xvi} of being more than this:  they were not only the representatives of a body of merchants, they were also the rulers of a colonial empire which in the East was looked up to with dread, with hatred also sometimes, to be sure, but at the same time with respect and awe!  There lay the ultimate cause of the fundamental difference of opinion respecting the colonial policy to be followed [*].  Van Diemen dreamt a bold dream of Dutch supremacy in the East and of the East India Company’s mastery “of the opulent Indian trade.”  To this end he deemed necessary:  “harassing of the enemy [**], continuation and extension of trade, together with the discovering or new lands.”  But if he had lived to read the missive [***], his grand projects would have received an effectual damper as he perused the letter addressed to him by the Lords Managers, on September 9, 1645, and containing the passage following:  “[We] see that Your Worships have again taken up the further exploration of the coast of Nova Guinea in hopes of discovering silver- and gold-mines there.  We do not expect great things of the continuation of such explorations, which more and more burden the Company’s resources, since they require increase of yachts and of sailors.  Enough has been discovered for the Company to carry on trade, provided the latter be attended with success.  We do not consider it part of our task to seek out gold- and silver-mines for the Company, and having found such, to try to derive profit from the same; such things involve a good deal more, demanding excessive expenditure and large numbers of hands...These plans of Your Worships somewhat aim beyond our mark.  The gold- and silver-mines that will best serve the Company’s turn, have already been found, which we deem to be our trade over the whole of India...”

[* I have dealt at some length with this subject in Vol.  III (’s-Gravenhage, NIJHOFF, 1895) of my Bouwstoffen voor de geschiedenis der Nederlanders in den Maleiscken Arckipel, pp.  LVI ff.]