GENERAL WOLFE'S STATUE AT QUEBEC, CANADA.
Quebec had been founded as early as 1608. It was not until 1641 that the foundations were laid of Montreal. But in the meantime Prince Edward's Island, Nova Scotia, and several of the West Indian islands had been occupied by English colonists.
Portugal during most of this half-century was under the Spanish king. She regained her complete independence, under a king of her own, in 1640. But by that time she had lost her empire in the East. Spain, sailing west from the New World, had arrived at the Philippine Islands, which Portugal had reached going east. Thus neither had transgressed the famous Bull. And yet East and West did meet in those islands. Drake, moreover, in his famous circumnavigation of the world, had come to the neighbouring Spice Islands, going west.
Both English and Dutch had taken a hand in destroying the Portuguese claims to any exclusive right of settlement in the East. Between English and Dutch, a decision was not reached so easily. It was largely on account of the excessive prices charged by the Dutch for pepper and other spices brought from the East Indian islands that the British East India Company was formed. It received a charter from the Crown to found settlements and claim trading rights for England. The Dutch so stubbornly held and defended their trade in the islands that the British gained no headway there until after the first half of the century. They did, however, make some trading settlements on the mainland of India, of which the earliest was in Madras, in 1639.
But an immediate impression was made on the Dutch supremacy in the islands the moment that the resolute policy of Cromwell took the place of the easy indifference of the Stuarts.