them; we indulge our worst desires without even having the honesty to pay for it; and the old, spurious morality, and political barbarism of Rome, are as stanchly maintained by us as ever—while we claim to look back on Popery with horror, and on our present condition as the celestial light of the nineteenth century. What a glorious thing it would have been, if when the Dutch and English had appeared in America and the Indies, they had come there too as Protestants and Reformed Christians! If they had protested against the cruelties and aggressions of the popish Spaniards and Portuguese—if they had reformed all their rapacious practices, and remedied their abuses—if they had, indeed, shown that they were really gone back to the genuine faith of Christ, and were come to seek honest benefit by honest means; to exchange knowledge for wealth, and to make the Pagans and the Mahomedans _feel_ that there was in Christianity a powder to refine, to elevate, and to bless, as mighty as they professed. But that day was not arrived, and has only partially arrived yet, and that through the missions. For anything that could be discovered by their practice, the Dutch and English might be the papists, and the Spaniards and Portuguese the reformed. From their deeds the natives, wherever they came, could only imagine their religion to be something especially odious and mischievous. The Dutch having thrown off the Spanish yoke at home, applied themselves diligently to commerce; and they would have continued to purchase from the Spaniards and Portuguese, the commodities of the eastern and western worlds, to supply their customers therewith;—but Philip II., smarting under the loss of the Netherlands, and being master of both Spain and Portugal, commanded his subjects to hold no dealings with his hated enemies. Passion and resentment are the worst of counsellors, and Philip soon found it so in this instance. The Dutch, denied Indian goods in Portugal, determined to seek them in India itself. They had renounced papal as well as Spanish authority, and had no scruples about interfering with the pope’s grant of the east to the Portuguese. They soon, therefore, made their appearance in the Indian seas, and found the Portuguese so thoroughly detested there, that nothing was easier for them than to avenge past injuries and prohibitions, by supplanting them. It was only in 1594 that Philip issued his impolitic order that they should not be permitted to receive goods from Portuguese ports,—and by 1602, under their admirals, Houtman and Van Neck, they had visited Madagascar, the Maldives, and the isles of Sunda; they had entered into alliance with the principal sovereigns of Java; established factories in several of the Moluccas, and brought home abundance of pepper, spices, and other articles. Numerous trading companies were organized; and these all united by the policy of the States-general into the one memorable one of the