w;
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,
But they sank his body with honour down into the deep,
And they mann'd the _Revenge_ with a swarthier alien crew,
And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her own;
When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from sleep,
And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their
masts and their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd
navy of Spain,
And the little _Revenge_ herself went down by the island crags
To be lost evermore in the main.

--_Alfred, Lord Tennyson_.

PART II

THE DUTCH WAR

CHAPTER XI

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR

(1623-1653)

The Dutch Wars, which lasted off and on for fifty years (1623-1673),
were caused by rivalry in oversea trade. In the sixteenth century the
Dutch and English had joined forces against the Portuguese, who had
tried to keep them out of the East Indies altogether. But when once
the Portuguese were beaten the allies fell out among themselves, the
Dutch got the upper hand, and, in 1623, killed off the English traders
at Amboyna, one of the Moluccas. War did not come for many years. But
there was always some fighting in the Far South East; and Amboyna was
never forgotten.

The final step toward war was taken when the British Parliament passed
the famous Navigation Act of 1651. By this Act nothing could be
brought into England except in English ships or in ships belonging to
the country from which the goods came. As the Dutch were then doing
half the oversea freight work of Europe, and as they had also been
making the most of what oversea freighting England had lost during her
Civil War, the Act hit them very hard. But they did not want to fight.
They had troubles of their own at home. They also had a land frontier
to defend. And they wanted to keep their rich sea freight business
without having to fight for it. But the British were bent on war.
They remembered Amboyna. They did not see why the Dutch should keep
other shippers out of the East Indies. And it angered them to see the
Dutch grow rich on British trade taken away while the British were busy
with a war.

When things are in such a state the guns almost go off by themselves.
Captain Young, with three s