With the dawn of the seventeenth century everything seemed to be conspiring to promote the prosperity of the country. England became more and more entangled in complications at home, and under a weak and vain king gave less and less assistance to her traders. In the north, Sweden and Denmark, engaged first in war among themselves and then in the Thirty Years’ War, easily let the Baltic trade imperceptibly glide into the hands of the Dutch. Neither Germany nor France were in a position to enter the lists with the republic, and the decaying power of the Hansa fell completely before the blast of the great war. The United Provinces, it is true, were forced to take their part in the struggle, but under the cautious and talented Frederick Henry, the younger son of William the Silent, who had succeeded his brother Maurice in 1625, the Dutch contingent did little more than garrison the duchy of Cleves, and keep the Low Countries quiet. Meanwhile the whole world was open to their enterprise. There was literally not a country to compete with them, even feebly, as the troubles in England thickened. They took part of Brazil from Spain, and founded on the coast of North America the colonies of New Holland and New Jersey, settled in Africa, in Ceylon, and on the mainland of India, planted themselves on the rich island of Java, and finally in 1630 made themselves masters of the Cape of Good Hope. In the first half of the seventeenth century they enjoyed a colonial empire larger than that of Venice in its palmy days. They were undisputed masters of the seas, they had almost the monopoly of the carrying trade of the world. [Sidenote: =Rivalry between the republican party and the House of Orange.=]