The special interest of the first half of the seventeenth century
is that in the trading and colonial experiments of this period the
character of the work which was to be done by the three new
candidates for extra-European empire was already very clearly and
instructively displayed. They met as rivals in every field: in the
archipelago of the West Indies, and the closely connected slaving
establishments of West Africa, in the almost empty lands of North
America, and in the trading enterprises of the far East; and
everywhere a difference of spirit and method appeared.

The Dutch, who made a far more systematic and more immediately
profitable use of the opportunity than either of their rivals,
regarded the whole enterprise as a great national commercial
venture. It was conducted by two powerful trading corporations,
the Company of the East Indies and the Company of the West Indies;
but though directed by the merchants of Amsterdam, these were
genuinely national enterprises; their shareholders were drawn from
every province and every class; and they were backed by all the
influence which the States-General of the United Provinces--
controlled during this period mainly by the commercial interest--
was able to wield.

The Company of the East Indies was the richer and the more
powerful of the two, because the trade of the Far East was beyond
comparison the most lucrative in the world. Aiming straight at the
source of the greatest profits--the trade in spices--the Dutch
strove to establish a monopoly control over the Spice Islands and,
in general, over the Malay Archipelago; and they were so
successful that their influence remains to-day predominant in this