A company of English merchants had organized to trade to America in the first year of the seventeenth century. Their first adventure to Guiana and Virginia were not successful yet gave a new impetus to the scheme originally conceived by Usselinx. A plan for the organization of a West India Company was drawn up in 1606, according to the excited Belgian ideas. This company was to have an existence of thirty-six years; to receive during the first six years assistance from all the United Provinces, and to be managed in the same manner as the East India Company. It was not consummated. Olden-Barneveldt, the Advocate of Holland and one of the most prominent and influential members of the peace party, foresaw that the organization of a West India Company with the avowed purpose of obtaining most of its profits by preying on Spanish commerce in American waters would only prolong the war. Usselinx’s plan was to compel Spain by these means to evacuate Belgium and thus give her exiled sons a chance to return to their old home. A wholesale departure of the shrewd, industrious, and skilful Belgians would have deprived Holland of her political pre-eminence and have left her an obscure and isolated province. The conflicting views and claims of the provinces caused the scheme to fail until after Olden-Barneveldt, accused of high treason, was tried, condemned, and beheaded in 1619. Subsequently Maurice of Nassau took up the scheme of forming the Dutch West India Company. Private ships sailing from Dutch ports had not been idle in the meantime; in 1607 we hear of them in Canada trading for furs. Belgium and the Netherlands, compelled to become maritime nations, while other circumstances directed to commercial pursuits, had become the common carriers of the sea and the Netherlands especially had availed themselves of the discoveries made by the Cabots, Verrazano, and other adventurous explorers in the country succeeding Columbus’ discovery of America. They thought Spain most assailable in the West Indies where they could prey upon their commerce and capture their treasures from Mexico and Peru. The first proposition to make such an expedition was submitted to the States General in 1581 by an English sea captain named Beets. It was refused. Later it gained favor and caused the formation of a West India Company really to fight Spain and not ignoring the search for a shorter route to India. Before Henry Hudson’s attempts to find a _northwest_ passage to India six trials had been made and subsequently more than twenty-five more, and while it is claimed that Sir Robert McClure in his expedition in 1650-54 succeeded, it was only by abandoning his vessel and completing his way on ice. The discovery is of no practical utility.