in three voyages, between 1594 and 1597,
William Barentz attempted the North-East Passage, under the auspices
of the States-General. He discovered Cherry Island, and touched
on Spitzbergen, but failed in the main object of his search; and
the attention of the Dutch was henceforth directed to seizing the
Portuguese route, rather than finding a new one for themselves.

The reason they were able to do this is a curious instance of Nemesis
in history. Owing to the careful series of intermarriages planned
out by Ferdinand of Arragon, the Portuguese Crown and all its
possessions became joined to Spain in 1580 under Philip II., just
a year after the northern provinces of the Netherlands had renounced
allegiance to Spain. Consequently they were free to attack not alone
Spanish vessels and colonies, but also those previously belonging
to Portugal. As early as 1596 Cornelius Houtman rounded the Cape
and visited Sumatra and Bantam, and within fifty, years the Dutch
had replaced the Portuguese in many of their Eastern possessions.
In 1614 they took Malacca, and with it the command of the Spice
Islands; by 1658 they had secured full possession of Ceylon. Much
earlier, in 1619, they had founded Batavia in Java, which they made
the centre of their East Indian possessions, as it still remains.

The English at first attempted to imitate the Dutch in their East
Indian policy. The English East India Company was founded by Elizabeth
in 1600, and as early as 1619 had forced the Dutch to allow them to
take a third share of the profits of the Spice Islands. In order
to do this several English planters settled at Amboyna, but within
four years trade rivalries had reached such a pitch that the Dutch
murdered some of these merchants and drove the rest from the islands.
As a consequence the English Company devoted its attention to the
mainland of India itself, where they soon obtained possession of
Madras and Bombay, and left the islands of the Indian Ocean mainly
in possession of the Dutch. We shall see later the effect of this
upon the history of geography, for it was owing to their possession
of the East India Islands that the Dutch were practically the
discoverers of Australia. One result of the Dutch East India policy
has left its traces even to the present day. In 1651 they established
a colony at the Cape of Good Hope, which only fell into English
hands during the Napoleonic wars, when Napoleon held Holland.

Meanwhile the English had n