The naval attack was made on February 15, but was unavailing. All the efforts of the Dutch to make their way through any of the entrances to the Pozo, though renewed again and again with the utmost bravery, were beaten off. In the evening Lonck withdrew his ships. He had learnt by an experience, to which history scarcely offers an exception, that a naval attack unsupported by military co-operation against land defences cannot succeed. But Waerdenburgh had used the opportunity, while the enemy's attention was directed to the repelling of the assault on the Reciff, to land his army without opposition. At dawn the Dutch general advanced and, after forcing the crossing of the river Doce in the teeth of the resistance of a body of irregular troops led by Albuquerque in person, marched straight on Olinda. There was no serious resistance. The fortifications were carried by storm and the town fell into the hands of Waerdenburgh. The garrison and almost all the inhabitants fled into the neighbouring forest.
Aware of the fact that the occupation of Olinda was useless without a harbour as a base of supplies, it was resolved at once with the aid of the fleet to lay siege to the forts of San Francisco and San Jorge. Despite obstinate resistance, first San Jorge, then San Francisco surrendered; and on March 3 the fleet sailed through the Barra, and the Reciff with the island of Antonio Vaz behind it was occupied by the Dutch. No sooner was the conquest made than steps were taken for its administration. A welcome reinforcement arrived from Holland on March 11, having on board three representatives sent by the Nineteen, who were to form with Waerdenburgh, appointed governor, an administrative council, or Court of Policy. The Reciff, rather than Olinda, was selected as the seat of government, and forts were erected for its defence. The position, however, was perilous in the extreme. Albuquerque, who was well acquainted with the country and skilled in guerrilla warfare, formed an entrenched camp to which he gave the name of the Arreyal de Bom Jesus, a position defended by marshes and thick woods. From this centre,[pg.173] by the aid of large numbers of friendly Indians, he was able to cut off all supplies of fresh water, meat or vegetables from reaching the Dutch garrison. They had to depend for the necessaries of life upon stores sent to them in relief fleets from Holland. It was a strange and grim struggle of endurance, in which both Dutch and Portuguese suffered terribly, the one on the barren sea-shore, the other in the pathless woods under the glare of a tropical sun, both alike looking eagerly for succour from the Motherland. The Dutch succours were the first to arrive. The first detachment under Marten Thijssen reached the Reciff on December 18, 1630; the main fleet under Adrian Jansz Pater on April 14, 1631. The whole fleet consisted of sixteen ships and yachts manned by 1270 sailors and 860 soldiers. Their arrival was the signal for offensive operations. An expedition under Thijssen's command sailed on April 22 for the large island of Itamaraca about fifteen miles to the north of the Reciff. It was successful. Itamaraca was occupied and garrisoned, and thus a second and advantageous post established on the Brazilian coast.
Meanwhile the Spanish government had not been idle. After many delays a powerful fleet set sail from Lisbon on May 5 for Pernambuco, consisting of fifteen Spanish and five Portuguese ships and carrying a large military force, partly destined for Bahia, but principally as a reinforcement for Matthias de Albuquerque. The expedition was commanded by Admiral Antonio de Oquendo, and was accompanied by Duarte de Albuquerque, the proprietor of Pernambuco. After landing troops and munitions at Bahia, the Spaniards wasted several weeks before starting again to accomplish the main object of blockading the Dutch in the Reciff and compelling their surrender by famine. But Pater had learnt by his scouts of the presence of Oquendo at Bahia, and though his force was far inferior he determined to meet the hostile armada at sea. The Spanish fleet was sighted at early dawn on September 12, and Pater at once gave orders to attack. His fleet consisted of sixteen ships and yachts, that of the enemy of twenty galleons and sixteen caravels. The Dutch admiral had formed his fleet in two lines, himself in the Prins Willem and Vice-Admiral Thijssen in the Vereenigte Provintien being the leaders. On this occasion the sight of the great numbers and size of the Spanish galleons caused a great part of the Dutch captains to lose heart and hang back. Pater and Thijssen, followed[pg.174] by only two ships, bore down however on the Spaniards. The Prins Willem with the Walcheren in attendance laid herself alongside the St Jago, flying the flag of Admiral Oquendo; the Vereenigte Provintien with the Provintie van Utrecht in its wake drew up to the St Antonio de Padua, the ship of Vice-Admiral Francisco de Vallecilla. For six hours the duel between the Prins Willem and the St Jago went on with fierce desperation, the captain of the Walcheren gallantly holding at bay the galleons who attempted to come to the rescue of Oquendo. At 4 p. m. the St Jago was a floating wreck with only a remnant of her crew surviving, when suddenly a fire broke out in the Prins Willem, which nothing could check. With difficulty the St Jago drew off and, finding that his vessel was lost, Pater, refusing to surrender, wrapped the flag round his body and threw himself into the sea. Meanwhile success had attended Thijssen. The lagging Dutch ships coming up gradually threatened the convoy of Spanish transports and drew off many of the galleons for their protection. The Provintie van Utrecht indeed, like the Prins Willem, caught fire and was burnt to the water's edge; but the vice-admiral himself sank the St Antonio de Padua and another galleon that came to Vallecilla's help, and captured a third. It was a bloody and apparently indecisive fight, but the Dutch enjoyed the fruits of victory. Oquendo made no attempt to capture the Reciff and Olinda, but, after landing the troops he convoyed at a favourable spot, sailed northwards, followed by Thijssen.
But though relieved the position was still very serious. Albuquerque, now considerably reinforced from his impregnable post at the Arreyal de Bom Jesus, cut off all intercourse inland. The Dutch even abandoned Olinda and concentrated themselves at the Reciff, where they remained as a besieged force entirely dependent upon supplies sent from Holland. Several expeditions were despatched with the hope of seizing other positions on the coast, but all of them proved failures; and, when Waerdenburgh returned home in 1633, having reached the end of his three years' service as governor, all that could be said was that the Dutch had retained their foothold on the coast of Pernambuco, but at vast cost to the company in men, vessels and treasure, and without any apparent prospect for the future. But pertinacity was to be rewarded. For the period of success that followed special histories must be consulted. In the year following the return of Waerdenburgh the efforts of[pg.175] the Dutch authorities to extend their possessions along the coast at the various river mouths were steadily successful; and with the advent of Joan Maurice of Nassau to the governorship, in 1637, the dream of a Dutch empire in Brazil seemed to be on the point of realisation. This cousin of the Prince of Orange was endowed with brilliant qualities, and during the seven years of his governorship he extended the Dutch dominion from the Rio Grande in the south to the island of Maranhão on the north and to a considerable distance inland, indeed over the larger part of seven out of the fourteen captaincies into which Portuguese Brazil was divided. On his arrival, by a wise policy of statesmanlike conciliation, he contrived to secure the goodwill of the Portuguese planters, who, though not loving the Dutch heretics, hated them less than their Spanish oppressors, and also of the Jews, who were numerous in the conquered territory. Under his rule the Reciff as the seat of the Dutch government was beautified and enlarged; many fine buildings and gardens adorned it, and the harbour made commodious for commerce with rows of warehouses and ample docks. To the new capital he gave the name of Mauritsstad.
During the earlier part of his governor-generalship Joan Maurice was called upon to face a really great danger. The year 1639 was to witness what was to be the last great effort (before the Portuguese revolt) of the still undivided Spanish monarchy for supremacy at sea. Already it has been told how a great fleet sent under Antonio de Oquendo to drive the Dutch from the narrow seas was crushed by Admiral Tromp at the battle of the Downs. In the same year the most formidable armada ever sent from the Peninsula across the ocean set sail for Brazil. It consisted of no less than eighty-six vessels manned by 12,000 sailors and soldiers under the command of the Count de Torre. Unpropitious weather conditions, as so often in the case of Spanish naval undertakings, ruined the enterprise. Making for Bahia they were detained for two months in the Bay of All Saints by strong northerly winds. Meanwhile Joan Maurice, whose naval force at first was deplorably weak, had managed by energetic efforts to gather together a respectable fleet of forty vessels under Admiral Loos, which resembled the English fleet of 1588 under Effingham and Drake, in that it made up for lack of numbers and of size by superior seamanship and skill in manoeuvring. At length, the wind having shifted, the Count de[pg.176] Torre put to sea; and on January 12, 1640, the Dutch squadrons sighted the Spaniards, who were being driven along by a southerly gale which had sprung up. Clinging to their rear and keeping the weather-gauge, the Dutch kept up a running fight, inflicting continual losses on their enemies, and, giving them no opportunity to make for land and seek the shelter of a port, drove them northwards in disorder never to return. By this signal deliverance the hold of the Netherlanders upon their Brazilian conquests appeared to be assured; and, as has been already stated, Joan Maurice took full advantage of the opportunity that was offered to him to consolidate and extend them. A sudden change of political circumstances was, however, to bring to a rapid downfall a dominion which had never rested on a sound basis.
The revolt of Portugal in 1641 was at first hailed in the United Provinces as the entry of a new ally into the field against their ancient enemy the Spaniard. But it was soon perceived that there could be no friendship with independent Portugal, unless both the East and West India Companies withdrew from the territories they had occupied overseas entirely at the expense of the Portuguese. King João IV and his advisers at Lisbon, face to face as they were with the menacing Spanish power, showed willingness to make great concessions, but they could not control the spirit which animated the settlers in the colonies themselves. Everywhere the Spanish yoke was repudiated, and the Dutch garrisons in Brazil suddenly found themselves confronted in 1645 with a loyalist rising, with which they were not in a position to deal successfully. The West India Company had not proved a commercial success. The fitting out of great fleets and the maintenance of numerous garrisons of mercenaries at an immense distance from the home country had exhausted their resources and involved the company in debt. The building of Mauritsstad and the carrying out of Joan Maurice's ambitious schemes for the administration and organisation of a great Brazilian dominion were grandiose, but very costly. The governor, moreover, who could brook neither incompetence nor interference on the part of his subordinates, had aroused the enmity of some of them, notably of a certain Colonel Architofsky, who through spite plotted and intrigued against him with the authorities at home. The result was that, the directors having declined to sanction certain proposals made to them by Joan Maurice, he sent[pg.177] in his resignation, which was accepted (1644). It must be remembered that their position was a difficult one. The charter of the company had been granted for a term of twenty-four years, and it was doubtful whether the States-General, already beginning to discuss secretly the question of a separate peace with Spain, would consent to renew it. The relations with Portugal were very delicate; and a formidable rebellion of the entire body of Portuguese settlers, aided by the natives, was on the point of breaking out. Indeed the successors of Joan Maurice, deprived of any adequate succour from home, were unable to maintain themselves against the skill and courage of the insurgent Portuguese leaders. The Dutch were defeated in the field, and one by one their fortresses were taken. The Reciff itself held out for some time, but it was surrendered at last in 1654; and with its fall the Dutch were finally expelled from the territory for the acquisition of which they had sacrificed so much blood and treasure.
The West India Company at the peace of Münster possessed, besides the remnant of its Brazilian dominion, the colony of New Netherland in North America, and two struggling settlements on the rivers Essequibo and Berbice in Guiana. New Netherland comprised the country between the English colonies of New England and Virginia; and the Dutch settlers had at this time established farms near the coast and friendly relations with the natives of the interior, with whom they trafficked for furs. The appointment of Peter Stuyvesant as governor, in 1646, was a time of real development in New Netherland. This colony was an appanage of the Chamber of Amsterdam, after which New Amsterdam, the seat of government on the island of Manhattan, was named. The official trading posts on the Essequibo and the Berbice, though never abandoned, had for some years a mere lingering existence, but are deserving of mention in that they were destined to survive the vicissitudes of fortune and to become in the 18th century a valuable possession. Their importance also is to be measured not by the meagre official reports and profit and loss accounts that have survived in the West India Company's records, but by the much fuller information to be derived from Spanish and Portuguese sources, as to the remarkable daring and energy of Dutch trading agents in all that portion of the South American continent lying between the rivers Amazon and Orinoco. Expelled[pg.178] from the Amazon itself in 1627 by the Portuguese from Para, the Dutch traders established themselves at different times at the mouths of almost all the rivers along what was known as the Wild Coast of Guiana, and penetrating inland through a good understanding with the natives, especially with the ubiquitous Carib tribes, carried on a barter traffic beyond the mountains into the northern watershed of the Amazon, even as far as the Rio Negro itself. This trade with the interior finds no place in the company's official minutes, for it was strictly speaking an infringement of the charter, and therefore illegitimate. But it was characteristically Dutch, and it was winked at, for the chief offenders were themselves among the principal shareholders of the company.
No account of Dutch commerce during the period of Frederick Henry would be complete, however, which did not refer to the relations between Holland and Sweden, and the part played by an Amsterdam merchant in enabling the Swedish armies to secure the ultimate triumph of the Protestant cause in the Thirty Years' War. Louis de Geer sprang from an ancient noble family of Liège. His father fled to Dordrecht in 1595 to escape from the Inquisition and became prosperous in business. Liège was then, as now, a great centre of the iron industry; and after his father's death Louis de Geer in 1615 removed to Amsterdam, where he became a merchant in all kinds of iron and copper goods, more especially of ordnance and fire-arms. In close alliance with him, though not in partnership, was his brother-in-law, Elias Trip, the head of a firm reputed to have the most extensive business in iron-ware and weapons in the Netherlands. The commanding abilities of de Geer soon gave to the two firms, which continued to work harmoniously together as a family concern, a complete supremacy in the class of wares in which they dealt. At this time the chief supply of iron and copper ore came from Sweden; and in 1616 de Geer was sent on a mission by the States-General to that country to negotiate for a supply of these raw materials for the forging of ordnance. This mission had important results, for it was the first step towards bringing about those close relations between Sweden and the United Provinces which were to subsist throughout the whole of the Thirty Years' War. In the following year, 1617, Gustavus Adolphus, then about to conduct an expedition into Livonia, sent an envoy to Holland for the purpose of securing the good offices of the States-General[pg.179] for the raising of a loan upon the security of the Swedish copper mines. The principal contributor was Louis de Geer. He had, during his visit to Sweden, learnt how great was the wealth of that country in iron ore, and at the same time that the mines were lying idle and undeveloped through lack of capital and skilled workmen. He used his opportunity therefore to obtain from Gustavus the lease of the rich mining domain of Finspong. The lease was signed on October 12, 1619, and de Geer at once began operations on the largest scale. He introduced from Liège a body of expert Walloon iron-workers, built forges and factories, and was in a few years able to supply the Swedish government with all the ordnance and munitions of war that they required, and to export through the port of Norrköping large supplies of goods to his warehouses at Amsterdam. His relations with Gustavus Adolphus soon became intimate. The king relied upon de Geer for the supply of all the necessaries for his armies in the field, and even commissioned him to raise troops for the Swedish service. In 1626 the Dutch merchant was appointed by the king acting-manager of the copper mines, which were royal property; and, in order to regularise his position and give him greater facilities for the conduct of his enterprises, the rights of Swedish citizenship were conferred by royal patent upon him. It was a curious position, for though de Geer paid many visits to Sweden, once for three consecutive years, 1626-29, he continued to make Amsterdam his home and principal residence. He thus had a dual nationality. Year after year saw an increasing number of mines and properties passing into the great financier's hands, and in return for these concessions he made large advances to the king for his triumphant expedition into Germany; advancing him in 1628 50,000 rixdalers, and somewhat later a further sum of 32,000 rixdalers. So confidential were the relations between them that Gustavus sent for de Geer to his camp at Kitzingen for a personal consultation on business matters in the spring of 1632. It was their last interview, for before that year closed the Swedish hero was to perish at Lützen.
The death of Gustavus made no difference to the position of Louis de Geer in Sweden, for he found Axel Oxenstierna a warm friend and powerful supporter. Among other fresh enterprises was the formation of a Swedo-Dutch Company for trading on the West Coast of Africa. In this company Oxenstierna himself invested[pg.180] money. In reward for his many services the Swedish Council of Regency conferred upon de Geer and his heirs a patent of nobility (August 4,1641); and as part repayment of the large loans advanced by him to the Swedish treasury he obtained as his own the districts containing his mines and factories in different parts of Sweden, making him one of the largest landed proprietors in the country. He on his part in return for this was able to show in a remarkable way that he was not ungrateful for the favours that he had received.
With Christian IV of Denmark for many years the Swedes and the Dutch had had constant disputes and much friction. This able and ambitious king, throughout a long and vigorous reign, which began in 1593, had watched with ever-increasing jealousy the passing of the Baltic trade into Dutch hands, and with something more than jealousy the rapid advance to power of the sister Scandinavian kingdom under Gustavus Adolphus. Of the 1074 merchant ships that passed through the Sound between June 19 and November 16, 1645, all but 49 came from Dutch ports, by far the largest number from Amsterdam; and from these Christian IV drew a large revenue by the exaction of harsh and arbitrary toll-dues. Again and again the States-General had complained and protested; and diplomatic pressure had been brought to bear upon the high-handed king, but without avail. Between Sweden and Denmark there had been, since Gustavus Adolphus came to the throne in 1613, no overt act of hostility; but smouldering beneath the surface of an armed truce were embers of latent rivalries and ambitions ready at any moment to burst into flame. Christian IV was a Protestant, but his jealousy of Sweden led him in 1639 openly to take sides with the Catholic powers, Austria and Spain. Fearing that he might attempt to close the passage of the Sound, the States-General and the Swedish Regency in 1640 concluded a treaty "for securing the freedom and protection of shipping and commerce in the Baltic and North Seas"; and one of the secret articles gave permission to Sweden to buy or hire ships in the Netherlands and in case of necessity to enlist crews for the same. Outward peace was precariously maintained between the Scandinavian powers, when the seizure of a number of Swedish ships in the Sound in 1643 made Oxenstierna resolve upon a bold stroke. Without any declaration of war the Swedish general, Torstensson, was ordered to lead his victorious army from North Germany into Denmark[pg.181] and to force King Christian to cease intriguing with the enemy. Holstein, Schleswig and Jutland were speedily in Torstensson's hands, but the Danish fleet was superior to the Swedish, and he could make no further progress. Both sides turned to the United Provinces. Christian promised that the grievances in regard to the Sound dues should be removed if the States-General would remain neutral. Oxenstierna addressed himself to Louis de Geer. The merchant on behalf of the Swedish government was instructed to approach the stadholder and the States-General, and to seek for naval assistance under the terms of the treaty of 1640; and, if he failed in obtaining their assent, then he—de Geer—should himself (in conformance with the secret article of that treaty) raise on his own account and equip a fleet of thirty ships for the Swedish service.