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century history in Europe made itself apace. The United Provinces had achieved their independence; Spain and Portugal had come under the sceptre of Philip II, who thus united in his single person the sovereignty of the discoveries in the Eastern and the Western world, which had been made by the two great nations of the Peninsula; the globe had been circumnavigated by Drake and by Cavendish; and most important of all, in so far as the fate of the East was concerned, the pride and strength of the greatest maritime peoples of Europe had been humbled to the dust by the defeat of the Invincible Armada. During the sixteenth century the trade of Asia poured into Lisbon, carried thither in Portuguese bottoms, and its distribution throughout the countries of Europe was mainly conducted by the traders of Holland. Philip's decree forbidding Dutch merchants to reside in or to hold commerce with Lisbon was a blow directed against the material prosperity of the Netherlands; but though for a time the measure caused considerable distress, it served in the end as a stimulant to the Hollanders inciting them to find their way to Asia on their own account, and thus to break up the monopoly so long enjoyed by Portugal and partially shared by Spain.

The first expedition, which had for its object the establishment of direct commercial relations between English merchants and the East, sailed in 1591, three years after the defeat of the Armada. It consisted of a fleet of three vessels under the command of Raymond and Lancaster, and the enterprise was conducted upon lines as frankly piratical as the heart of an Elizabethan could desire. On