So prosperous had their affairs now become, that in 1617, when the stock of the Company had reached a premium of two hundred and three per cent., the Dutch East India Company were induced to suggest an amalgamation of the two companies, with a view to crush their common enemy, the Portuguese, and to exclude all other shipping from obtaining a footing in India. Though this scheme was never carried into effect, the two companies concluded, in 1619, a treaty of trade and friendship, whereby they should cease from rivalry, and apportion the profits of the different branches of commerce between them.[157] But the treaty, like most others of a similar character, was made only to be broken, and in the course of the following year the Dutch governor-general really, though erroneously, under the impression that the English had gained undue advantages, attacked their possessions of Lantore and Pulo-Penang. A long series of hostile acts ensued, including the massacre of various Englishmen by the Dutch in Amboyna, and numerous conflicts between the merchant vessels of both countries, resulting in the exclusion of the English from the valuable trade of the Archipelago, and in losses most disastrous to the Company. [Sidenote: Losses of the East India Company.] Thus, in a few years after the conclusion of a treaty which professed so much and performed so little for the benefit of either party, the Dutch had gained so complete an ascendency over the English traders, that, notwithstanding their valuable acquisition of the island of Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, and the prospect of still being able to conduct a lucrative trade with the East, the Directors seriously meditated relinquishing all they had gained, and liquidating the affairs of the Company. They had already abandoned their scheme of the Greenland[158] fishery, which had been incongruously intermingled with their East Indian adventures, and had withdrawn from Japan, notwithstanding the great encouragement they had received for the prosecution of its valuable trade. With an increased capital of more than one million and a half, their stock had decreased one half in value, and so powerful had the Dutch now become, that the Company for the time seems to have lost all hope of being able to compete against them and the Portuguese, who still maintained an important position in India. This great rivalry for maritime supremacy, which commenced during the reign of Elizabeth, formed one of the most important subjects for discussion during the whole lifetime of her successor.[159] [Sidenote: Sir Waiter Raleigh’s views on maritime commerce, 1603.]