History of the United Netherlands, 1602-03 | Page 6

contending in the Indian seas with the Portuguese
monopolists of the tropics.
A century long, the generosity of the Roman pontiff in bestowing upon
others what was not his property had guaranteed to the nation of Vasco

de Gama one half at least of the valuable possessions which maritime
genius, unflinching valour, and boundless cruelty had won and kept.
But the spirit of change was abroad in the world. Potentates and
merchants under the equator had been sedulously taught that there were
no other white men on the planet but the Portuguese and their
conquerors the Spaniards, and that the Dutch--of whom they had
recently heard, and the portrait of whose great military chieftain they
had seen after the news of the Nieuport battle had made the circuit of
the earth--were a mere mob of pirates and savages inhabiting the
obscurest of dens. They were soon, however, to be enabled to judge for
themselves as to the power and the merits of the various competitors
for their trade.
Early in this year Andreas Hurtado de Mendoza with a stately fleet of
galleons and smaller vessels, more than five-and-twenty in all, was on
his way towards the island of Java to inflict summary vengeance upon
those oriental rulers who had dared to trade with men forbidden by his
Catholic Majesty and the Pope.
The city of Bantam was the first spot marked out for destruction, and it
so happened that a Dutch skipper, Wolfert Hermann by name,
commanding five trading vessels, in which were three hundred men,
had just arrived in those seas to continue the illicit commerce which
had aroused the ire of the Portuguese. His whole force both of men and
of guns was far inferior to that of the flag-ship alone of Mendoza. But
he resolved to make manifest to the Indians that the Batavians were not
disposed to relinquish their promising commercial relations with them,
nor to turn their backs upon their newly found friends in the hour of
danger. To the profound astonishment of the Portuguese admiral the
Dutchman with his five little trading ships made an attack on the
pompous armada, intending to avert chastisement from the king of
Bantam. It was not possible for Wolfert to cope at close quarters with
his immensely superior adversary, but his skill and nautical experience
enabled him to play at what was then considered long bowls with
extraordinary effect. The greater lightness and mobility of his vessels
made them more than a match, in this kind of encounter, for the clumsy,
top-heavy, and sluggish marine castles in which Spain and Portugal
then went forth to battle on the ocean. It seems almost like the irony of
history, and yet it is the literal fact, that the Dutch galleot of that

day--hardly changed in two and a half centuries since--"the
bull-browed galleot butting through the stream,"--[Oliver Wendell
Holmes]--was then the model clipper, conspicuous among all ships for
its rapid sailing qualities and ease of handling. So much has the world
moved, on sea and shore, since those simple but heroic days. And thus
Wolfert's swift-going galleots circled round and round the awkward,
ponderous, and much-puzzled Portuguese fleet, until by well-directed
shots and skilful manoeuvring they had sunk several ships, taken two,
run others into the shallows, and, at last, put the whole to confusion.
After several days of such fighting, Admiral Mendoza fairly turned his
back upon his insignificant opponent, and abandoned his projects upon
Java. Bearing away for the Island of Amboyna with the remainder of
his fleet, he laid waste several of its villages and odoriferous
spice-fields, while Wolfert and his companions entered Bantam in
triumph, and were hailed as deliverers. And thus on the extreme
western verge of this magnificent island was founded the first trading
settlement of the Batavian republic in the archipelago of the
equator--the foundation-stone of a great commercial empire which was
to encircle the earth. Not many years later, at the distance, of a dozen
leagues from Bantam, a congenial swamp was fortunately discovered in
a land whose volcanic peaks rose two miles into the air, and here a
town duly laid out with canals and bridges, and trim gardens and
stagnant pools, was baptized by the ancient and well-beloved name of
Good-Meadow or Batavia, which it bears to this day.
Meantime Wolfert Hermann was not the only Hollander cruising in
those seas able to convince the Oriental mind that all Europeans save
the Portuguese were not pirates and savages, and that friendly
intercourse with other foreigners might be as profitable as slavery to the
Spanish crown.
Captain Nek made treaties of amity and commerce with the potentates
of Ternate, Tydor, and other Molucca islands. The King of Candy on
the Island of Ceylon, lord of the odoriferous fields of cassia which
perfume those