It was in aid of the English rival company not only, but as an attempt to save and revive the commercial position of England generally, that Cromwell’s “navigation laws” were enacted, prohibiting the carriage of goods to or from British shores except in ships owned and manned by Englishmen,— laws that were aimed directly at the Dutch, and led to the long wars of the latter half of the seventeenth century. These were called wars for the supremacy of the sea, but actually they were a prolonged struggle for the biggest share of the world’s trade, which is the only real value of the “supremacy of the sea.” It is a saying that “trade follows the flag,” and so it does; but at the beginning the flag goes were the trade is to be had. These companies were so mixed up in the politics of their respective governments that it would be a long task, although entertaining, to trace their growth, which is really that of western civilization in the East. They equipped fleets of merchant and war vessels, established forts, carried on small wars along the Oriental coasts, and were really little kingdoms within kingdoms, because of their wide monopoly, enormous wealth, and the national importance of all their enterprises. The final result was that, as Great Britain finally overcame the Dutch and French at home, so her East India Company ousted them from India; but it was not until 1858 that old “John Company,” which had come to be regarded by the natives of India as the government itself, was dissolved, and resigned its territories to the crown and a system of trade open to all the world. Those were slow and costly times compared with the present, though seeming to us full of a romance impossible now. A voyage around the world occupied three years, and to go from London to Calcutta and back took from New Year’s to Christmas under the most favorable circumstances. Another important change, too, has gradually come about. Formerly, the vessels were owned almost entirely by the merchants themselves, or by a company of them; they paid all a ship’s expenses, and put into her a cargo of their own wares. They would send to China, for instance, cotton goods, household furniture, hatchets, tools, cutlery and other hardware, farming implements, and fancy goods of all sorts. In return the vessels would bring silks, tea, and porcelain, which would go into the owners’ warehouses and be sold in their own shops. Shipper, importer, and merchant were all one.