ndia to the States.

Notification; of the union of all India companies with this great
corporation was duly sent to the fleets cruising in those regions, where
it arrived in the course of the year 1603.

Meantime the first fleet of the Company, consisting of fourteen vessels
under command of Admiral Wybrand van Warwyk, sailed before the end of
1602, and was followed towards the close of 1603 by thirteen other ships,
under Stephen van der Hagen?

The equipment of these two fleets cost two million two hundred thousand
florins.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Bestowing upon others what was not his property
Four weeks' holiday--the first in eleven years
Idea of freedom in commerce has dawned upon nations
Impossible it is to practise arithmetic with disturbed brains
Passion is a bad schoolmistress for the memory
Prisoners were immediately hanged
Unlearned their faith in bell, book, and candle
World has rolled on to fresher fields of carnage and ruin

CHAPTER XLI. 1603-1604

Death of Queen Elizabeth--Condition of Spain--Legations to James I.
--Union of England and Scotland--Characteristics of the new monarch
--The English Court and Government--Piratical practices of the
English--Audience of the States' envoy with king James--Queen
Elizabeth's scheme far remodelling Europe--Ambassador extraordinary
from Henry IV. to James--De Rosny's strictures on the English
people--Private interview of De Rosny with the States' envoy--De
Rosny's audience of the king--Objects of his mission--Insinuations
of the Duke of Northumberland--Invitation of the embassy to
Greenwich--Promise of James to protect the Netherlands against
Spain--Misgivings of Barneveld--Conference at Arundel House--Its
unsatisfactory termination--Contempt of De Rosny for the English
counsellors--Political aspect of Europe--De Rosny's disclosure to
the king of the secret object of his mission--Agreement of James to
the proposals of De Rosny--Ratification of the treaty of alliance--
Return of De Rosny and suite to France--Arrival of the Spanish
ambassador.

On the 24th of March, 1603, Queen Elizabeth died at Richmond, having
nearly completed her seventieth year. The two halves of the little island
of Britain were at last politically adjoined to each other by the
personal union of the two crowns.

A foreigner, son of the woman executed by Elizabeth, succeeded to
Eli