Among the original investors there had been a certain Jacques le Maire, a native of the town of Antwerp who had fled when the Spaniards took that city for the second time, and who now lived in Amsterdam with his wife and his twenty-two children. He was respected for his ability, and was chosen into the body of directors who managed the affairs of the East India Company. But Le Maire was not the sort of man to stay in the harness with others for a very long time. He complained that the company cared only for dividends and immediate profits. He wanted to see the ships of his adopted country make war upon the Spaniards, besides trying to steal their colonies. [Illustration] After a few years Le Maire quarreled openly with several of the other directors, and he planned to form an Indian company of his own. In Amsterdam, however, he was so strongly opposed by his enemies, who were still in the old company, that he was forced to leave the city. He went to live in a small village near by and continued to work upon his schemes. With Hendrik Hudson he discussed a plan of reaching the Indies by way of the Northwestern Route--a route which was as yet untried. To King Henry IV of France he made the offer of establishing a new French company as a rival of the mighty Dutch institution. All these many ideas came to nothing. Henry IV was murdered, and Hudson went into the service of another employer. Le Maire was obliged to invent something new. He was in a very difficult position. The Estates General of the Dutch Republic had given to their one East India Company a practical monopoly of the entire Indian trade. They decided that no Dutch ships should be allowed to travel to the Indies except through the Strait of Magellan or by way of the Cape of Good Hope. That meant that the entrance to the Indian spice islands was closed at both sides. It was of course easy enough to sail through the strait or past the cape. There was nobody to prevent one from doing so. But when one tried to trade in India on his own account, the Dutch company sent their men-of-war after the intruder. These wanted to know who he was and how he came within the domain of the company. Since there were only two roads, he must have trespassed in one way or the other upon the privileges of the company. Therefore the company, which was the sovereign ruler of all the Indian islands, had the right to confiscate his ships. [Illustration]