14 EARLY COMPETITION FOR INDIAN COMMERCE

change of tone, goes on to give the prices of commodi- ties and the colours of cloths that will not keep fast in an Indian climate. By 1615 the trade of Portugal had, we are told, infinitely decayed; and the Spanish government showed very little concern at the rapid impoverishment of that kingdom. In Holland, on the contrary, the Republic looked upon its East India trade as " a high point of state," and assisted the Company with great sums of money. But the substitution of Dutchmen for Portu- guese as our rivals in this part of the world was by no means an advantage to us. Their estrangement from England, originally caused by the wavering policy of the first two Stuarts, who leaned first toward Spain and afterwards toward France, was undoubtedly fos- tered by growing commercial jealousies. Thencefor- ward, throughout the seventeenth century, the annals of East Indian affairs record a continuous persevering contest between the English and Dutch for advantage in the Indian trade, and for possession of the settle- ments that were necessary to its existence. The Dutch had gradually annexed most of the principal Portuguese settlements; they asserted paramount European power in all those seas and islands; so that they constantly came into sharp collision with the English, who were still weak in those regions, and whose merchant adven- turers were ill supported by the vacillating and unpop- ular government of James I and his son Charles. It should be understood that the term " East In- dies," according to the nomenclature of those days,