It is natural that from the fact that the Portuguese had the monopoly of the East Indian trade, the finest examples of Oriental workmanship should be found in Portugal and Spain, Lisbon being the entrepot of European distribution. The Spanish dominions in the Low Countries were well supplied with these wares by the Dutch mariners.

During the sixteenth century, the Dutch were already famed as sea-carriers (rouliers des mers). With Lisbon as a base of supplies, they soon destroyed the monopoly of the trade in Oriental wares which Venice had so long enjoyed. When Philip II annexed Portugal in 1580, however, he naturally sought to take revenge on his rebellious subjects of the Low Countries by closing against them the ports of the Iberian peninsula.

Finding that their profits from the trade with the East Indies were thus practically extinguished, their only course was to go to those distant lands themselves. How to get there was the question; and this was a secret which the Portuguese navigators had carefully guarded. The Dutch knew that they were reached by some southern route which could only be traversed by force of arms, but thought that the lands where one might "swim in golden lard "might be reached by a north-east passage. Dutch ships vainly attempted this in 1594 and 1596, being barred by the ice. In the meantime, Corneliz Houtman had managed to buy some Portuguese charts, and thus to learn the real route around the Cape. He induced ten merchants of Amsterdam to form a "Foreign Company" (van verre) and send out a sort of exploring expedition. This first attempt was made on no lavish scale. The ships could not hope to fight the mighty Portuguese armed carracks. The four ships of this first voyage were the Maurice, 400 tons; the Amsterdam, 200 tons; the Dove, 30 tons • and the Holland, 400 tons.

They left the Texel early in April, 1595, and arrived home in August, 1597. Their glowing reports encouraged the despatch of a second flotilla of eight ships in 1598, four of which went to the Moluccas and the rest no farther than Bantam, returning with rich cargoes of spices and other merchandise. Several other companies were started in consequence, but in 1602 they were all consolidated with a capital of 6,440,000 florins, and the Dutch East India Company was established.

The Dutch navigators and travellers who sailed the Vanderdecken course to the Spice Islands, naturally, on their return, gave their fellow-countrymen a full account of the wealth and curiosities of art they had witnessed in India, Polynesia, China and Japan. Two or three of these, not being foreign to our subject, may be quoted here. The Netherland East India Company sent an embassy to the Emperor of China in 1655, and the reporter was evidently most interested in supplying his fellow-countrymen with the secrets of the manufacture of porcelain, which the Dutch were trying to imitate with their delft ware. He says:

"Upon the 25th of April we came to a village famous for shipping called Ucienjen, where lay great store of vessels of several sorts and sizes, which were come thither from all parts of China, to lade with China earthenware, whereof great store is sold in this village. . . . Quite through the middle of this rich village runs a broad street, full of shops on both sides, where all manner of commodities are sold; but the chiefest trade is in Purceline, or China dishes, which is to be had there in great abundance. . . .

"The earth whereof this porcelain is made, is digged in great quantity out of the mountains situated near the chief city Hoei-cheu, in the province of Nanking, from whence it is brought in four-square clods to the above-mentioned village, which have the Emperor's arms stamped upon them to prevent all manner of deceit. The earth is not fat, like clay, or chalk, but like to our fine sand, which they mingle with water, and so make it into four-square clods. They likewise beat and powder the broken China dishes, and make new ones of them; (but such as are made of broken ware never take so fine colour and gloss as those which are made of fresh mould.) The earthen clods which are thus brought from the mountains are afterwards framed into what fashions they please, after the same manner as our potters in Europe form their earthenware. Upon the great pots which are made of this earth, they have an art to themselves to paint all manner of creatures, flowers and trees, which they do very curiously only with Indico. This art of painting upon the pots is kept so private and secret that they will not teach it to any but to their children and near relations, wherein the Chineses are so dexterous that you cannot show them anything, but they will imitate it upon their pots and dishes, which being framed and made of this earth, are first dryed in the Sun before they are baked in the oven; and when they are thoroughly dryed, they are put into an oven and stopt very close, where they bake for fifteen days together with a good fire under: the time being out, they are continued in the oven fifteen days more without any fire; however the oven all that while is kept close stopt, and not opened till it be quite cold; for if they should take their earthenware red-hot out of the oven, it would endanger the breaking and losing their gloss.

After the expiration of thirty days, the furnace is opened in the presence of an officer appointed by the Emperor to take an account of this earthenware, and to receive the Emperor's duty which is of such sort the fifth piece, according to the laws of the kingdom; the rest they afterwards sell to the inhabitants of this village, Ucienjen, where (as they say) is the staple of this Purceline trade, which is sent from this village, not only through all China, but also through the whole world."

From Samedo's History of China, we learn: "They have altogether relinquished to Europe to be served in plate, there being scarce found among them a vessel of silver of a considerable bigness, no not in the Emperor's palace, being content to eat in porcelain, which is the only vessel in the world for neat and delightful cleanliness. . . . Kiamsi is famous for the Porcellane dishes (indeed the only work in the world of this kind) which are made only in one of its towns: so that all that is used in the kingdom, and dispersed through the whole world, are brought from this place: although the earth whereof they are made cometh from another place: but there only is the water, wherewith precisely they are to be wrought to come to their perfection, for if they be wrought with other water the work will not have so much glosse and lustre. In this worke there are not those mysteries that are reported of it here, neither in the matter, the form nor the manner of working; they are made absolutely of earth, but of a neat and excellent quality. They are made in the same time, and the same manner, as our earthen vessels; only they make them with more diligence and accuratenesse.