Читать книгу The Life of Sir Henry Morgan. With an account of the English settlement of the island of Jamaica онлайн

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The navigation act passed by the parliament in 1660, declaring that all productions of the English colonies must be transported in English ships, was distinctly framed in the hope of overthrowing the maritime supremacy of Holland, in which it eventually succeeded.[64]

About the end of the same year the first African Company was chartered with the King's brother, the Duke of York, as president, and the King himself as a partner. It was granted exclusive rights of trade with the coast of Africa. Two years later the company undertook to deliver three hundred negro slaves annually to the planters of Jamaica. Its efforts to establish trading stations on the west coast of Africa brought it at once into sharp competition with the powerful Dutch West India Company, whose trade it was seeking to capture. An English fleet, commanded by Captain Robert Holmes, forcibly expelled the Dutch from several small posts claimed by the English company, and the Dutch quickly retaliated by seizing two English merchant ships and driving another away. In the summer of next year the English met with the most obstinate opposition from their sturdy rivals.