The separation of the Dutch provinces from the crown of Spain had induced their merchants to seek more distant and more lucrative channels of employment for their ships, while their superior information respecting Spanish and Portuguese affairs gave them a marked advantage over their English competitors in the valuable trade of the East. They had now supplanted the Portuguese[152] in the Moluccas, driven them out of their most valuable trade with Japan, and become the predominant naval power in the Indian seas, a power they long maintained. Finding England, however, a more stubborn rival, they employed all their influence and artifices to molest the ships of the Company and other English traders. Just, in fact, as the Moors had endeavoured to ruin the Portuguese in the opinion of the native princes of India, so the Dutch, having expelled the Portuguese from the chief trade of the East, now resorted to any expedient, either by secret intrigue or open force, to drive the English merchant vessels from the same localities. But the profits realised in their first expedition had inspired the London merchants with fresh energy. Having obtained a new charter (31st of May, 1609) for fifteen years, the Company set about constructing the _Trades’ Increase_, of one thousand two hundred tons, the largest ship hitherto built for the English merchant service. At her launch, and at that of her pinnace, of two hundred and fifty tons, bearing the equally appropriate name of the _Peppercorn_, the Company gave a great banquet, at which the dishes were of china-ware, then a novelty in England. With these vessels, and a victualling bark of one hundred and eighty tons, and the _Darling_, of ninety tons, Sir Henry Middleton, who had been placed in command, set sail for Mocha, on the Red Sea, where, ensnared on shore by the Muhammedans, eight of his crew were massacred, sixteen others disabled, and he himself severely wounded. Proceeding thence to Bantam, the _Trades’ Increase_ was unfortunately wrecked, and here Middleton, broken down by misfortunes and disasters, died, thus closing one of their most unfortunate expeditions on record. [Sidenote: Renewed efforts of the English East India Company.] The Company, however, persevered in their Eastern undertakings, and in 1611 despatched two other expeditions to the Indies; one consisting of a single ship, the _Globe_, which, though absent for nearly five years, owing to the artifices of their opponents, realised two hundred and eighteen per cent. on the capital invested; the other, consisting of the _Clove_, the _Hector_, and the _Thomas_, comparatively small vessels, which, though absent only three years, was even more successful: another expedition, which immediately followed, though absent only twenty months, earned in that time a profit of no less than three hundred and forty per cent.[153] [Sidenote: They gain favour with the Moghul Emperor of India, and materially extend their commercial operations.]