By 1612, the English and Dutch East India Companies had been formed. The Dutch had established a trading post or factory at Surat, from which they were afterwards expelled by the English Company, and both Companies had factories on the Hughli in Bengal. They were not friends, and often fought, but they combined against the Portuguese and Spaniards who had appeared on the scene a hundred years before, and who looked upon all trade from India round the Cape as their monopoly. By the beginning of the seventeenth century the Portuguese had lost almost all their possessions in India to the Dutch, and their trade had weakened and diminished to a point which rendered them almost negligible as competitors in trade. At this time, several European nations granted monopolies of trade to the Indies, and the French and the Danes now came on the scene. It was found impossible, however, to keep out private individuals who sought to set up trading factories on their own account, despite monopolies, and swarms of these adventurers came in to trade in all the valuable articles of merchandize, including opium. They looked upon force as their only law, and their depredations on the seas perpetrated against the Indian sailors brought about the speedy decay of the old native sea-trade. Although the English Company established a predominance over the Dutch in general trade, the latter maintained a lead in the trade in opium. They exported it to Ceylon, Malacca and the Straits, and it has been ascertained from contemporary chronicles that the Dutch had attempted to arrange with Indian Princes to monopolize the export trade of opium to China. In this, however, they failed, for the Portuguese, who had always had a monopoly of the export of Malwa opium, still held possession of their ports on the Cambay Gulf, and so were in a favourable situation for this trade.