1660 - Ruling the Seas

England has enacted a new Navigation act which reinforces the constraints of the previous one (1651). In short it imposes to its trade, home and colonial, import as export, to be carried by British ships handled by British crews for the three quarters of their hands. This is a blatant reaction to the hegemony of the merchant fleet of the United Provinces, three times the tonnage under the English flag which is second in the world. This is also an expression of the policy of Mare Clausum (Closed Sea) as exposed in 1635 by John Selden (†1654) in his treaty of the same name, defending the idea that sea areas are under the dominions of chosen nations – clearly an owner’s viewpoint, shared century-long by Spain and Portugal, both unable to fulfil it today.    

Contrary to the Englishmen, the Dutch made their own the doctrine exposed in 1609 in Mare Liberum (Free Sea) by Huig de Groot (†1645), better known as Hugo Grotius, 26 years old then. His assertion is that high seas belong to no country so are free for all for seafaring trade – clearly a challenger’s opinion.

Hugo Grotius

¤ Grotius took up Francisco de Vitoria (†1546) of the School of Salamanca on the right of nations and on the notion of common good superior to any national one.

¤ Grotius was jailed in 1618 for his position in favour of religious tolerance (the true reason was political). Escaped, he lived in exile in France from 1621 and finally entered the service of Sweden in 1634.

¤ As soon as established in 1602, the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), the Dutch East India Company, started with striking Portuguese interests. In 1603 Jacob van Heemskerck (†1607), 36 years old, leading three VOC’s ships, captured the tremendous 1500-ton Portuguese carrack Santa Catarina, the largest ship in the world. It raised a legal dispute in the United Provinces on the legitimacy of such actions which called on Grotius, hence his Mare Liberum in hindsight. The lawsuit concluded with depriving the Portuguese on the charge of undue monopoly. The loot – silk and musk – aboard the single carrack was so precious that the VOC could expand its capital by a half (some told it even doubled). Thus injured Portugal declared war against the United Provinces – a war which is still lasting after 57 years.

Grotius' doctrine worked for the Dutch as they henceforth dared to meddle in foreign sea business and to intrude on alien sea domain to the point they can supersede previous owners. It has enabled the United Provinces to accrue enormous wealth in fifty years. Revenues have flowed from all activities which stem from overseas trade, i.e. : shipbuilding, shipping, trade of herring, raw materials, wheat, precious commodities precious metal, guns, and so on, money change, coin minting, holding gulden as reserve currency, payment banking, discount of commercial bills, depository banking, credit banking. At war as in peace, the Dutch merchants have intervened in Spanish economics. Half the flow of American silver, drained by trade, has come to Amsterdam. This is the stake for which England and the United Provinces, old allies to deprive Portugal and Spain though, already fought each other in 1652-53 and will likely fight again. This is the struggle of cod versus herring, to take their flagship staples as rivalry emblems.

New Civilization Step

Sail changed the face of the world. It was a century and a half ago. Ruling the seas had afterwards driven nations to ruling the world.

As everybody knows, it begun by wavering voyages of a few seafarers aboard a handful of tiny ships which would be barely eligible to cabotage nowadays.

¤ For his first voyage to what he thought be Far East (1492), Christopher Columbus had 88 men aboard three ships, a 100-ton carrack, a 60-ton caravel and a 50-ton one. For his voyage to India (1497), Vasco da Gama had 170 men aboard three 100-ton carracks and a 50-ton caravel. For his voyage to Newfoundland (1497), Giovanni Caboto had 18 men on a single 50-ton caravel. For his voyage around the world (1519), Ferdinand Magellan had 237 men aboard five carracks of 75 to 120 tons. Shipwrecks were exceedingly frequent amongst the pioneers. Human losses by drowning or due to a disease, scurvy for instance, were heavy. Success hung by a hair.

¤ By contrast, the Chinese spread large fleets including tens giant junks for the purpose of their explorations of Indian ocean (1405-33). Junk dimensions are unknown but it seems that they could be twice the size of Vasco da Gama's carracks in length, and perhaps ten times the tonnage. Memories of those impressive fleets passing were still vivid among the natives in 1498-99 when Gama landed in Eastern Africa and in India. Of course, he wondered who were the mysterious pale-face explorers who had preceded him two generations earlier : meanwhile the Chinese had forsaken high seas.

From those humble ventures, America was discovered by Europe, the world was rounded and split between European powers, and trade has soared beyond expectation through sea routes designed and sailed by the only European seafarers worldwide. Old empires as India or China have fallen back onto their inland. American empires were overthrown and became colonies. Remote nations have bowed before Portugal and Spain, then before English and Dutch companies. They all became vassal suppliers of riches that Europe has plundered henceforth.

In this new overall world, the Mediterranean and Baltic areas lost their rank. Financial places moved accordingly. They settled in Antwerp, then in Amsterdam and London to the detriment of Venice, Florence and Lübeck. The venerable Hanseatic League still exists but matters for nought henceforth. Mighty overseas trading companies, chartered or regulated by states, have caught big business.

The unprecedented expansion of Europe across the oceans is nevertheless challenged by its concurrent retreat before the Ottomans. Simultaneously schisms within Christendom gave rise to all-round wars. Ordinary people have become preys for an unleashed soldiery of the vilest sort throughout America then Europe. Lately, the Holy Roman Empire lost a third of its subjects during the Thirty Years war (1618-48), Ireland a fifth of its folk during the Cromwellian conquest (1649-53). Europe is fierce and ruthless in the grip of its two terrible mainsprings, bigotry and cupidity.

Prior to the irruption of England and of the United Provinces onto the scene, Portugal and Spain were the landlords of immense colonial dominions and the owners of the lines of communication with them. As early as 1481 Portugal got this hegemonic situation de jure thanks to the settlement by Pope Sixtus IV (†1484) of its dispute with Castile.  The papal bull Aeterni regis stipulated that the Canary islands belong to Castile while all the future territories discovered in Africa and eastward to the Indies were granted to Portugal. Spain got de facto hegemony on West World in 1492, thanks to Columbus (†1506), then, de jure, in 1493-94 thanks to Pope Alexander VI (†1503).

¤ In 1452 Portugal had already been granted the right of enslaving non-Christians by Pope Nicholas V’s bull Dum Diversas. In 1454 the same pope Nicholas (†1455) edicted the bull Romanus Pontifex which permits every Catholic sovereign to expand one’s dominion over non-Christian lands and to enslave their non-Christian natives.  

Three papal bulls in succession summarized in the papal edict Dudum siquidem (1493) granted Castile the territories westward of the meridian laying 100 leagues west of Cape Verde islands and Portugal the territories eastward. The subsequent treaty of Tordesillas (1494) finally moved the line of demarcation to the meridian 370 leagues west of the islands. It is believed that Portugal had already made land in Brazil without disclosing its location and argued to set the line just in the middle of the ocean defined by its west end in Juana – the name that Columbus gave to the recognised portion of what he thought be Cipangu, which turned to be Cuba actually – and its east end at Cape Verde. The treaty also named Antillia, after a legend island searched at length by the Iberian seafarers, the land which soon became Hispaniola.

Both kingdoms experienced an astounding rise afterwards – the work of two generations of daring men after Colombus, namely : Amerigo Vespucci (†1512), Vasco da Gama (†1524), Francisco de Almeida (†1510), Afonso de Albuquerque (†1515), Pedro Álvares Cabral (†1520), Juan Ponce de León (†1521), Ferdinand Magellan (†1521), Hernán Cortés (†1547), Francisco Pizarro (†1541), and tens lesser ones. Of course, the other European countries could not accept this exclusive division, moreover issued by two popes known for their immorality.

Frustration for England and France

The United Provinces did not exist yet : they were part of Burgundy which had come into the Habsburg legacy. They discreetly participated in the discoveries under the Spanish flag – that is the Burgundy Cross as Emperor Charles V (†1558) was firstly duke of Burgundy (1506), before becoming king of Spain (1516), then archduke of Austria & Holy Roman emperor (1519).

On their own, England & France missed the opportunity of joining Portugal & Spain, by chance. They had all necessary abilities in their ports of Bristol and Dieppe. Their seafarers may perhaps have even touched America before Colombus. Yet, if the research of the legendary Isle of Brasil by Britons led to discoveries around Newfoundland, Acadia or New England, they remained unknown and discontinued.

¤ The Isle of Brasil is a mythical island supposed to lie west of Ireland, hidden by mist but a few days every seven years if we reckon on common tales about it. It had survived on charts of different sources throughout the 14th, the 15th and even the 16th century – a quite long life for a phantom land. It has a parent in the same area, southwest of Ireland, the island of Brazir which has become Mayda in the early 16th century, and which is still present on a chart issued in 1649, previously designed by renowned and reliable Willem Blaeu (†1638), master cartographer to the rather prosaic VOC. This island has tended to move westward from a chart to the next one – for what reason? - but has never been recognised so far. The island of Antillia has been present at different places on the charts of the 15th century before its final identification with Hispaniola and before the allocation of its liberated name to the overall Caribbean archipelago.

Yet it is ascertained that Giovanni Caboto (†1499) made land on Newfoundland in 1497 on the tiny 50-ton Matthew on behalf of King Henry VII and was royally awarded £10 for this feat. A few others of Bristol continued exploration the following years but it is also told that some had preceded Caboto in the 1480s.

¤ Caboto’s travel westward took 52 days between May 2 and June 24 for some 2,500 miles as a bird flies, which is quite fast upwind. His return in Bristol was on August 6. It is said that Caboto departed from Newfounland on July 20, which would mean a swift 15-day transatlantic trip at some 8 knots on average. Caboto spent less than a month on the other side of the Atlantic ocean – a whirlwind stop, strange enough. What was the purpose ? His mission required a thorough exploration in the king’s words. What did he do instead ? A mere reconnoissance ? Spotting cod schools for further exploitation ? Checking existence of a land already reported by seafarers since the 1480s ? He may also have been in a hurry to sail back before the equinox gales.

The same fate stroke the voyages of seafarers from Dieppe on the African coast - peacemeal, soon forgotten and discontinued. It is ascertained that they traded ivory from African natives from the 1480s and also traded with Brazilian ones in the 1500s. It is told in France of the landfall in 1488, by chance after a storm, on the coast of Brazil of a Jehan Cousin from Dieppe.

¤ Famous Martin Alonzo Pinzón (†1493) has his part in this voyage. He is said to have been Cousin’s first mate before being Colombus’ pilot four years later. It is conceivable as Pinzón’s sea experiences overlapped with the routes sailed by the navigators of Dieppe for ivory trade. It is impossible to ascertain or deny.

Later, the expeditions set by Shipowner Jehan Ango (†1551) - Jean and Raoul Parmentier’s one in the East Indies in 1529, and Giovanni da Verrazzano’s one in North America in 1524 and in the West Indies in 1526-28 - did not bring any result. The three captains died during their explorations which did not help for follow-up action.

¤ Verrazzano moved to Dieppe in 1523 for a mission in joint-venture with Ango who was the sponsor for the expeditions of the Parmentiers and for a number of explorers, traders and privateers. With the only surviving ship of his flottilla of four after a storm, he sailed along the coast of North America, looking for a passage to Pacific ocean which led him to explore in vain the mouths of the rivers which were to become Delaware, Hudson and Saint-Lawrence. He named Nova Gallia the overall country and Nouvelle-Angoulême the region which became Nieuw Amsterdam in 1625 then New York in 1664.

However, we remember of the three expeditions of Jacques Cartier (†1557), from Saint-Malo, who recognised the Saint-Lawrence river (1534-42) and named Canada the inner land. Anyway, French naval momentum interrupted with the wars of Religion.

¤ There were three attempts of Protestant settlement inspired by the Huguenot leader, Admiral Gaspard de Coligny (†1572). The first one took place in Brazil, in the bay of Guanabara, in 1555, under Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon (†1571). Fort-Coligny was dismantled in 1565 by the Portuguese who established nearby the future town of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro. The second lasted only one year (1562-63) for lack of food and took place where the colony of Virginia settled later. Fort-Charles was implemented there by Captain Jean Ribault (†1565). The last French endeavour before the foundation of Quebec (1608) took place in Florida, ahead of the Spanish one by a first attempt of settlement in 1562 and a second in 1564 at Fort Caroline, close to the San Juan river, during the truce between the first and the second war of religion. It sadly interrupted after a year. Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilès came to destroy the French fort. Repelled by Jean Ribault, he established a settlement nearby which was to become San Agustin. The French flottilla happened to be destroyed by a storm which permitted Menéndez to finally dismantle Fort Caroline. The colonists were Protestants as in Brazil and in Virginia. Is this the reason why Menéndez ordered the infamous massacre of the sailors and colonists, including Ribault, who had surrendered? It took place near Fort-Caroline at a place which became known as Matanzas – ‘Slaughters’.

Spain from Dawn to Twilight

Spain became and remained the ruler of the seas throughout the 16th century until the third and last Armada sent against England (1597), a failure as the two previous ones. From the Dutch rebellion on (1566), it has been continuously at war, against the Ottomans, the Dutch, the French, the Englishmen and even the Portuguese. In short, despite the long invincibility of its tercios until Rocroi (1643), and its large fleet of galleons, it lost every war.

¤ The ‘tercios’ names an organization of infantry which combines pikes and firearms in a ‘pike & shot’ pattern. Originally, this is also a corps of professional soldiers and volunteers endowed with an outstanding fighting spirit.

Everywhere on the defensive, it nevertheless remains the landlord of an immense domain. The reunion of Portugal (1580) theoretically gave it the universal empire but England, the United Provinces, France, Sweden and Denmark-Norway proved eager to seizing their own chunks, and Portugal to emancipating, which was accomplished as of 1640. Thus, despite its unequalled knowledge of world geography, the secret treasure of its cartography, its fleet rich of the largest galleons and of its convoy organization, its thorough administration, its ‘dólar’ – or ‘peso’, a silver coin worth eight ‘reales’, the first currency prevailing worldwide –, its abundant resources of gold, silver, gems, tobacco, spices, sugar, despite all its riches and some twenty-seven million subjects, seven on the Iberian peninsula, five and a half in Italy, one and a half in the Netherlands, despite all its gifts and talents, Spain wanes.

¤ The Treasure Fleet of the West Indies was invented in 1564 by Menéndez de Avilès (†1574), the slaughter of Fort Caroline. It consists in gathering at Havana the three primary convoys from Cartagena de Indias, Portobelo and Vera Cruz so as to form a large one and sail to Sevilla. It has sailed every year from 1566 until today. In the Pacific ocean, the to and fro route between Manila and Acapulco was established in 1565.

This is not the rival Ottoman empire of thirty million subjects which has replaced it on the high seas, even if at the peak of its power. It has not become a sea power. Yet, in the aftermath of Lepanto (1571), it took the upper hand at sea as on land on Venice and Spain and seized most of their possessions in Mediterranean area. It also conquered the Mamluk empire, fended the Portuguese off the Arabic surroundings that they had been threatening, and pushed the Austrians back to the core of their inland. Its declining fleet of sixty galleys still equals the Venetian one – but Venice as the galleys have degraded to secondary roles. Its vassal Barbary states operate likely more than a hundred xebecs in addition with tens of galleys organized in small flotillas to raid the coasts and capture merchant ships.

¤ The xebec is an evolution of the galley on which the sailing plan has developed to the detriment of oars. Typically a light 200-ton vessel, very fine – a 100-foot length for a 22-foot beam – she is a good sailer, fit for chasing and raiding. She is armed with twelve to sixteen breech-loading guns of two or three-pound calibre, the prangis, mounted on swivels or inserted in oar ports to sweep enemy deck.

This is also the mainspring of the republic of Salé in Morocco. Beside their usual targets in Portugal, Spain and Italy, Salé and the Barbary privateers even dared to raid England, Ireland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and sailed to North America for a reconnoissance in the years 1625-31. Ottoman expansion strength and Barbary raiding impetus seem to slow down by now. It is perhaps a mere pause.

¤ Famous Murat Reis the Younger, a Dutch captive who became a renegade privateer captain at Salé in Morocco, raided Iceland in 1627 and Ireland in 1631. The Barbary pirates repeatedly ransacked towns of Southwest England under the very nose of the Royal Navy. Their swift ships easily escaped the ponderous men of war of that era. We may think they could not repeat that today. Contrary to European privateers which look for precious goods, capture of slaves is the main objective of Barbary ones. Some ten thousands Christians may be enslaved every year on average. This plague is still lasting.

Merchant Adventurers & Privateers from England

The English momentum to sea trade is ancient but it suddenly grew in the 1550s. The Company of the Merchant Adventurers of London was established as early as 1407. Companies of merchant adventurers, i.e. the merchants involved in sea trade, multiplied and developed in the beginning of the 16th century to the detriment of the Hanseatic League on the same markets of Northern Europe, their main purpose being cloth trade. Simultaneously English fisheries set about preparing and selling salt cod for the whole European market.

Richard Chancellor (†1556) opened the route to White sea up to the mouth of the Dvina river in 1554. He was granted privileges for English merchants by Tsar Ivan IV (†1584), in bare violation of the rights of the Hanseatic League. It led to the foundation of a town which took the name of Arkhangelsk, opened trade with Russia and led to the foundation of the Muscovy Company in London in 1555.

The next step was to see England meddling in high seas trade. John Hawkins (†1595) interfered in slave trade from his original activities of privateering and smuggling as of 1562. Before him, the Atlantic slave trade was a monopoly of the Portuguese seafarers from their outposts in Africa. It was still a limited trade since the American colonists could use enslaved natives. Less than 100,000 Africans had then been transported to the New World then for perhaps one million and a half today, always by Portuguese and Englishmen, but also by Dutchmen – and the trend is to see the number grows. Hawkins involved Queen Elizabeth I in the business in 1564 as he invented the triangular slave trade, making a profit at each stop – changing goods for slaves in Africa, changing slaves for precious commodities in the West Indies, then changing them for money in England. As of 1570 he successfully involved himself in a more righteous cause, that is improving warships and navy administration – an achievement which underlied the victory in the first Armada campaign (1588).

A relative of Hawkins, Francis Drake (†1596), who made his name by stealing a treasure from the Spaniards in the West Indies, came to round the world between 1577 and 1580, as part of a privateering activity against Spanish galleons and ports. His voyage had been agreed and partly sponsored by Queen Elisabeth – she invested £250, about a thousandth of her income –, by high-rank courtiers and by navy officials including Hawkins. Drake was the first foreigner to enter the Pacific ocean that Spain considered and kept so far as its Mare Clausum. His encroachment was a breach of the treaty of Nymegen signed in 1573 which committed Queen Elizabeth not to support privateering against Spanish ships and ports, which she seems not to have observed scrupulously. Drake's new operation was even more profitable than the previous one. It is noteworthy that Drake’s expedition was as risky as Magellan’s one sixty years before. As Magellan, he had five ships and he lost four of them. Exploration was still performed by foolhardy sailors aboard cockleshells. At the same time (1577-79), Walter Raleigh (†1618) tried to find a passage to Pacific ocean through Northwest. As every English seafarer of the period he satisfied his sponsors with chasing Spanish galleons instead. His expedition changed English mindset about the possibility of trading with Asia and of circumventing Portuguese and Spaniards.

¤ The largest Drake’s ship was the 120-ton galleon Golden Hind ex-Pelican, the others being humble 30-, 50- and 80-tonners. An Elizabethan warship was at least a 300-tonner, the largest being 500-tonners. Drake had 167 men and came back with 59 – which is a bit less dramatic than the 18 survivors of Magellan’s voyage.

Chart of Spanish Armada's route

Drake successfully commanded the raid on Cádiz and the overall operation against the preparation of the Spanish Armada in 1587. He was the second in command for the fortunate battles of the Armada in 1588.  Afterwards he was the unfortunate admiral in charge of the failed revenge – that is the disastrous Counter-Armada defeated in 1589, which almost disappeared from all records. From then, his star turned pale.

Thomas Cavendish (†1592) was the next to achieve the circumnavigation in 1586-88, at the age of 28, on the same scheme as Drake, that is a privateering expedition in the guise of an exploration. He departed with three ships, a 120-, a 60- and a 40-tonner. He came back with one, as usual if we may say so, but exceedingly rich.

Privateering was highly profitable but it was no more than bloodsucking on Spanish economics. There was more interesting activity to promote. India and Far East were appealing by silk, musk, spices and chinaware. North America seemed to offer immensity for settlement colonists. Then England inherited the rule of the seas as storms successively destroyed three Spanish Armadas, in 1588, 1596 and 1597, while its navy succeeded in sacking Cádiz twice, in 1587 and 1596. The time had come of undertaking greater things.

Geographer Richard Hakluyt (†1616) published in 1582, at the age of 29, a compilation which made him a name : Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America and the Ilands Adjacent unto the Same, Made First of all by our Englishmen and Afterwards by the Frenchmen and Britons. Afterwards he entered Raleigh’s patronage. This is the time of the first short-lived settlement known as the Roanoke Colony (1585), a Raleigh's initiative. Hakluyt carried on praising English seafarers, merchants and colonists with great success through The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589) & The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation (1598). He urged his sponsor Robert Cecil, Secretary of State (†1612), to settle a colony in Virginia again. He was a shareholder and the director of the Virginia Company of London which founded Jamestown in Virginia in 1607. The company collapsed in 1621 to be replaced by a governor on behalf of the king of England.

Meanwhile, the East India company, initially the 'Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies' had been established in 1600. The company followed the tracks of two successful adventurers : (1) James Lancaster (†1618), who reached India then Malaysia for the first time in 1591, seized Spanish and Portuguese ships and established the first trading post in Southeast Asia ; (2) Walter Raleigh, already mentioned, who captured the giant 1,600-ton carrack Madre de Deus in 1592, a ship which carried a large quantity of spices and of gems for a sky-high worth nearing half a million pounds as well as the router chart for East Indies, navigation documents and trade instructions for China and Japan.

So begun the colonial and trade destiny of England all around the world. The emblematic establishment was the foundation of Plymouth in 1620 by separatist Puritans come aboard the Mayflower.

Dutch Wonder

The Dutch made their initial success on sea trade with herring. They discovered how to preserve it in the end of the 14th century. They finally came to sell herring to the whole Europe. A humble start of fishmonger for an empire.

Besieged during eighty years by its powerful enemy, the small republic of the United Provinces – one and a half million citizens today – has achieved to reach hegemony over sea trade, hence on trade banking as a consequence. This has enabled it to blossom in a golden age in art, science, industry, trade and finance. It has also been a sanctuary of relative tolerance : Philosopher René Descartes (†1650) spent fourteen productive years of his life in wilful exile in Holland for peace, while Jews from Spain and Portugal fled there from Inquisition, as the Spinozas for instance.

The Dutch feat stems from moral virtues of tenacity, versatility and efficiency against adverse conditions. Their coasts are half-locked by sand dunes and most often swept by headwinds. They are deprived of home sources of timber, of wood for masts, of iron, of tar, of pitch and of hemp – indeed they lack everything to build a ship – but they firmly stand at the pinnacle of shipbuilding industry and of shipping trade. They are said to sail half the European tonnage. For sure, they build for less than £5 a ton against over £7 for their English second. While the English shipbuilders improved warships and English admirals invented modern battle tactics, the Dutch pioneered new harbour facilities, serial shipbuilding, mechanized shipbuilding, tight logistics, new merchant vessels often meant to specific trades, as well as new trade schemes with customers.

The Dutch harbours are covered with cranes and windmills – a vanguard feature. Dutch shipbuilders have been using mills to saw timber for sixty years on the pioneer port of Zaandam, for thirty years only in Amsterdam as the guild of sawyers long opposed mechanization. This year there are 61 sawmills on the shipbuilding site in Amsterdam. There are also specific devices to cross over the shallows, which have become mandatory as individual tonnages grow up. The core of the industrial estate lies in the island of Rapenburg for the VOC and the Admiralty of Holland. There is nothing equivalent worldwide. Every necessary trade is incorporated there. There specialist work on hemp, flax, calfskin, leather, bronze, iron, seasoned oak timber, pinewood, teak, cedar, meat… Around the slipways, they make masts, riggings, edgings, fittings, sails, shrouds, hawsers, capstans, anchors, guns, cannonballs, gunpowder, compass, charts, casks, preserved food – anything that has a place aboard a ship, that is everything on earth but a plough and a scythe.

As early as the 1560s, the Dutch invited themselves and mostly replaced the Britons in the 1600s as traders with the Russians. The same scheme happened also in the Baltic sea and in the North sea for the trade of grain, of wood, of hemp, and of tar. This is a habit of the Dutch to follow the Britons and to replace them thanks to better trade terms. Today they are performing nine tenths of the Nordic and Baltic sea trade. The instruments of their success are the ‘fluyt’ and the ‘vluieboot’, flute and flyboat, merchant vessels of respectively 250 to 600 tons and of 70 to 250 tons, lightly built, endowed with slayed flanks. Some flutes are specifically adapted to timber cargo as the ‘noordvarder’ endowed with a high hold, or to grain cargo as the ‘oostvarder’ displaying paunchy flanks, which can carry from 100 to 200 lasts of grain.

¤ The Dutch last weighs 4,000 Amsterdam pounds, almost two long tons of weight.

The Dutch started to explore high seas as late as 1595 but they developed overseas business at a frantic pace afterwards. Olivier van Noort (†1627) was the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the world (1598-1601) with the twofold mission of finding a way to the spices and, make a guess, of seizing riches from the encountered Iberian galleons – which he did.

¤ Prior to 1580 and the embargo imposed by Spain, Portuguese merchants sold most of East India spices via the Netherlands. War changed the circuit and the Dutch merchants were obliged to find a direct path to the spices to remain in the business. They sent spies to Lisbon to know sources and locations. They purchased charts. They hired pilots.

The ‘Vereegnide Oostindische Compagnie’ (VOC), the Dutch East India Company, was established two years after the English one, in 1602. Its development has been extraordinary and its current power is amazing. It deserves a specific chronicle. The ‘Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie’ (GWC), the Dutch West India Company, was founded in 1621.

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IN RETROSPECT FROM TODAY

NOTE A - About the war between Portugal and the United Provinces.

It officially broke out in 1603 but Portugal was already involved against Dutch rebellion as partnering with Spain in the Iberian union as of 1580. It was also impacted as its main outlet for spices was the United Provinces which decided to circumvent it to the spices. Peace intervened in 1661 after Portugal lost a number of settlements to the GWC and the VOC. It nevertheless resisted in Brazil.

NOTE B - On the Hanseatic League.

Its counter in London is destroyed by the Great Fire (1666). It will not be rebuilt as no city of the League wants to pay for. The last general meeting is called to be held in 1669 but most cities abstain from attending and no decision is made. This is the way the venerable League disintegrates after almost four centuries.

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SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arthur T Mahan - The Influence of sea Power Upon History 1660-1783 - New York, 1890

Michael Lewis - The Spanish Armada - London, 1960

Gijs Rommelse - The Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667). International Raison d’état, Mercantilism and Maritime Strife - Hilversum, 2006