are, because
within the exclusive limits of the East India Company; although their
ships never come nearer to the western coast of America than Canton
in China, at the enormous distance of 174 degrees of longitude, and
59 degrees of latitude, counting from Canton in China to Conception in
Peru, or upwards of _twelve thousand English miles_. It is certainly
at least extremely desirable, that a trade of such promise should not
remain any longer prohibited, merely to satisfy a punctilio, without
the most distant shadow of benefit to the India Company, or to the
nonentity denominated the South-sea Company.--_Ed._

CHAPTER XIII.

VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD, BY COMMODORE ROGGEWEIN, IS 1721-1723.[1]

INTRODUCTION.

There was, perhaps, no country in the world where commerce was more
profitable, or held more honourable, than in Holland, or where more
respect and attention was shewn to it by the government. As the
republic chiefly subsisted by trade, every thing relating to it was
considered as an affair of a public nature, in which the welfare
of the state was concerned, and highly deserving therefore of the
strictest and readiest attention. The great companies in Holland,
as in other countries, were considered as injurious to trade in
some lights, yet necessary to its welfare in others. The _West India
Company_ of that country, originally erected in 1621, held, by an
exclusive charter, the commerce of the coast of Africa, from the
tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, and that of America, from
the southern point of Newfoundland in the N.E. all along the eastern
coast to the Straits of Magellan or Le Maire, and thence northwards
again along the western coast, to the supposed Straits of Anian, thus
including the entire coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The
directors of this company consisted of seventy-two persons, divided
into five chambers, of whom eighteen were chosen to administer the
affairs of the Company, together with a nineteenth person, nominated
by the States-General.

[Footnote 1: Harris, I. 256. Callender, III. 644.]

The affairs of this Company were once in so very flourishing a
condition, that it was considered as even superior to their East India
Company. This prosperity was chiefly owing, to the happy success of
their affairs at sea; as their admiral, Peter Haines, in the 1629,
captured the Spanish plate fleet, laden with immense riches. They at
one time made themselves masters of the