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coveries began to be penetrated by the other nations of Europe. A period was set to the time during which all detailed information concerning the geography, the trade, the politics and the peoples of the East was, in a sense, the exclusive and jealously guarded property of Portugal. The capture of the carrack, the Madre de Dios, by the English in 1592, on board which was a copy of the "Notable Register and Matricole of the whole Govern- ment and Trade of the Portuguese in the East Indies," furnished the merchants of London with much precious information which hitherto had been withheld from all the world, and this document became in fact the pros- spectus of the first British East India Company. Dr. Thorne, an Englishman who had long resided in Seville, also supplied his countrymen with a valuable report on the political and commercial relations of Spain and Por- tugal with the East. A similar service was rendered to the merchants of Holland by Jan Huygen van Lin- schoten, who had resided many years at Goa under the patronage of the Archbishop, Vincente de Fonseca, and had collected a great store of information relating to all the eastern lands with which the Portuguese held com- merce. Linschoten returned to Holland in September, 1592, and two years later the States General granted him. a license to publish his work. Its appearance, however, was delayed until 1596, as its author, who shared the then popular belief in the possibility of opening a trade-route to the Indies viâ the north of Europe and Asia, wasted this period upon a fruitless voyage undertaken with that object. Although his book was not given to the public