Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/273

OPEN STRUGGLE WITH THE DUTCH 215 " Thus perished," wrote a despondent British chron- icler, our " attempt to open a passage into India." The check was only for a moment. In 1598 the English translation of Linschoten's Itinerario made the London merchants realize afresh the splendour of the prize and the certainty that it was about to pass from the Catholic South to the Protestant North. The report that the Dutch had bought up ships in England for a new voyage stung English national pride. In 1599 the London merchants gave counter-check by an en- thusiastic subscription of 30,133 for an East Indian voyage, and begged the queen's royal assent to the expedition " for the honour of our native country, and for the advancement of trade of merchandise within this realm of England." The commercial rivalry be- tween Holland and England that rivalry which was to outlast generations, to affect profoundly the European policy and national antipathies of England, to burn British ships in the Medway, and to stamp the tragedy of Amboyna in letters of blood upon England's Asiatic history now stood revealed.