CHAPTER V

Summary

Value of the Dutch East-Indies

From the importance which the Dutch, in the days of their greatness, attached to their East-India commerce, of which Batavia was the emporium, and the importance which this commerce conferred upon them, from the desire excited in the other nations to obtain a share in its advantages, and the crimes committed to maintain its undivided monopoly, some idea may be formed of its magnitude and value. When the French troops, in the summer of 1672, under Louis XIV, had overrun the territory of Holland, with the rapidity and irresistible force of the sea after bursting the dykes, the Republic formed the magnanimous resolution of transporting its wealth, its enterprise, and its subjects, to another hemisphere, rather than submit to the terms of the conqueror, and fixed upon Batavia, already the seat of its eastern commerce, as the capital of its new empire.