tic exploration and exploits in the Far East. In 1607 he
took 21 converted merchantmen and 4 transports to the Spanish coast
to protect Dutch vessels from the east and the Mediterranean.
Encountering off Gibraltar an enemy force of 11 large galleons
and as many galleys under Alvarez d'Avila, a veteran of Lepanto,
he destroyed half the Spanish force and drove the rest into port,
killing about 2000 Spanish and coming out of the fight with the
loss of only 100 men. Heimskirck concentrated upon the galleons
and came to close action after the fashion which seems to have
been characteristic of the Dutch in naval engagements throughout
the war. "Hold your fire till you hear the crash," he cried, as
he drove his prow into the enemy flagship; and the battle was won
after a struggle yard-arm to yard-arm. Bath admirals were killed.

Portugal, broken by the Spanish yoke, could offer little resistance
in the Far East. In 1606 a Dutch fleet of 12 ships under Matelieff
de Jonge laid siege to Malacca, and gave up the attempt only after
destroying 10 galleons sent to relieve the town. Matelieff then
sailed to the neighboring islands, and established the authority
of the company at Bantam, Amboyna, Ternate, and other centers of
trade.

Other fleets earlier and later promoted the interests of the company
by the same means. English traders, with scanty government encouragement
from the Stuart kings, were not as yet dangerous rivals. A conflict
occurred with them in 1611 off Surat; and at Amboyna in 1623 the
Dutch seized the English Company's men, tortured ten of them, and
broke up the English base. For more than a century Holland remained
supreme in the east; she has retained her colonial empire down to
the 20th century; and she did not surrender her commercial primacy
until exhausted by the combined attacks of England and France.
Less successful than England in the development of colonies, she
has stood out as the greatest of trading nations.

REFERENCES

_The Vikings_

THE VIKING AGE, H. F. Du Chaillu, 1889.

_The Hansa_

THE HANSA TOWNS, H. Zimmerman, 1889.
HISTORY OF COMMERCE, Clive Day, 1913 (bibliography).
CIVILIZATION DURING THE MIDDLE AGES, George Burton Adams, 1918.
CAMBRIDGE MODERN HISTORY, Vols. I and II.

_Dutch Sea Power_

MOTLEY'S RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC (still the best source in English
for political and naval history of the period).
HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NETHERLANDS, P. J. Blok, trans. Ruth
Putn