ABSTRACT
THE establishment of the Dutch East India Company upon a national basis in 1602 ushered in a period of more determined attacks upon the Portuguese possessions and shipping. Hitherto the Hollanders had acted-nominally, at any rate-upon the defensive, but now a strong offensive action against the Portuguese became a cardinal factor in the Company’s policy and the Directors were determined to seek out the enemy in their own strongholds. Of all the numerous Portu-guese settlements scattered along the coasts of Asia which lay open to attack, none was so tempting as the fortified town of Malacca. A glance at the map will soon serve to show why this was so. Malacca held then the position which Singapore
SKETCH MAP OF THE CHINA SEA AND THE SURROUNDING COUNTRY IN 1606.
(Names of Portuguese and Spanish settlements are doubly underlined.)
