History of the United Netherlands, 1602-03 | Page 7

tropical seas, was glad to learn how to exchange the
spices of the equator for the thousand fabrics and products of western
civilization which found their great emporium in Holland. Jacob
Heemskerk, too, who had so lately astonished the world by his exploits
and discoveries during his famous winter in Nova Zembla, was now

seeking adventures and carrying the flag and fame of the republic along
the Indian and Chinese coasts. The King of Johor on the Malayan
peninsula entered into friendly relations with him, being well pleased,
like so many of those petty rulers, to obtain protection against the
Portuguese whom he had so long hated and feared. He informed
Heemskerk of the arrival in the straits of Malacca of an immense
Lisbon carrack, laden with pearls and spices, brocades and
precious-stones, on its way to Europe, and suggested an attack. It is
true that the roving Hollander merely commanded a couple of the
smallest galleots, with about a hundred and thirty men in the two. But
when was Jacob Heemskerk ever known to shrink from an encounter--
whether from single-handed combat with a polar bear, or from leading
a forlorn hope against a Spanish fort, or from assailing a Portuguese
armada. The carrack, more than one thousand tons burthen, carried
seventeen guns, and at least eight times as many men as he commanded.
Nevertheless, after a combat of but brief duration Heemskerk was
master of the carrack: He spared the lives of his seven hundred
prisoners, and set them on shore before they should have time to
discover to what a handful of Dutchmen they had surrendered. Then
dividing about a million florins' worth of booty among his men, who
doubtless found such cruising among the spice-islands more attractive
than wintering at the North Pole, he sailed in the carrack for Macao,
where he found no difficulty in convincing the authorities of the
celestial empire that the friendship of the Dutch republic was worth
cultivating. There was soon to be work in other regions for the hardy
Hollander--such as was to make the name of Heemskerk a word to
conjure with down to the latest posterity. Meantime he returned to his
own country to take part in the great industrial movements which were
to make this year an epoch in commercial history.
The conquerors of Mendoza and deliverers of Bantam had however not
paused in their work. From Java they sailed to Banda; and on those
volcanic islands of nutmegs and cloves made, in the name of their
commonwealth, a treaty with its republican antipodes. For there was no
king to be found in that particular archipelago, and the two republics,
the Oriental and the Germanic, dealt with each other with direct and
becoming simplicity. Their convention was in accordance with the
commercial ideas of the day, which assumed monopoly as the true

basis of national prosperity. It was agreed that none but Dutchmen
should ever purchase the nutmegs of Banda, and that neither nation
should harbour refugees from the other. Other articles, however;
showed how much farther, the practice of political and religious liberty
had advanced than had any theory of commercial freedom. It was
settled that each nation should judge its own citizens according to its
own laws, that neither should interfere by force with the other in regard
to religious matters, but that God should be judge over them all. Here at
least was progress beyond the system according to which the Holy
Inquisition furnished the only enginry of civilization. The guardianship
assumed by Holland over these children of the sun was at least an
improvement on the tyranny which roasted them alive if they rejected
religious dogmas which they could not comprehend, and which
proclaimed with fire, sword, and gibbet that the Omnipotent especially
forbade the nutmeg trade to all but the subjects, of the most Catholic
king.
In Atsgen or Achim, chief city of Sumatra, a treaty was likewise made
with the government of the place, and it was arranged that the king of
Atsgen should send over an embassy to the distant but friendly republic.
Thus he might judge whether the Hollanders were enemies of all the
world, as had been represented to him, or only of Spain; whether their
knowledge of the arts and sciences, and their position among the
western nations entitled them to respect, and made their friendship
desirable; or whether they were only worthy of the contempt which
their royal and aristocratic enemies delighted to heap upon their heads.
The envoys sailed from Sumatra on board the same little fleet which,
under the command of Wolfert Hermann, had already done such signal
service, and on their way to Europe they had an opportunity of seeing
how these republican sailors could deal with their enemies on the
ocean.
Off St. Helena