THE EAST AND WEST INDIA COMPANIES.

COMMERCIAL AND ECONOMIC EXPANSION An account of the foundation, constitution and early efforts of the Dutch East India Company has been already given.

The date of its charter (March 20, 1602) was later than that of its English rival (Dec.

31, 1600), but in reality the Dutch were the first in the field, as there were several small companies in existence and competing with one another in the decade previous to the granting of the charter, which without extinguishing these companies incorporated them by the name of chambers under a common management, the Council of Seventeen.

The four chambers however--Amsterdam, Zeeland, the Maas (Rotterdam and Delft) and the North Quarter (Enkhuizen and Hoorn)--though separately administered and with different spheres, became gradually more and more unified by the growing power of control exercised by the Seventeen.