(inasmuch as they feel no desire for clothing, and require no necessaries for their subsistence) that all the trade which exists there, can easily be carried on with two or three ships a year, and be maintained with trifling Capital. The country is bounded by the great river of the Amazons, which also, is not free from Spanish settlements, as our people have experienced to their damage. Next follows again, an extensive coast unto Ikazil, the greatest part of which possessing any capability of producing articles of trade or cultivation, is altogether settled by the Portuguese. Brazil, wholly settled by them, extends beyond the Tropic of Capricorn, and from thence onward to the straits of Magellan, and is of no value. Across the Strait, in the South sea, nothing remains unsettled, except the west part of Magellianica and a part of Chili, and finally, the isolated ( geunageneerde ) wealthy countries of Terra Australis. Thus your Great Mightinesses see what remains, within such great limits,in the West

Indies, open to the Company for trade or cultivation; wherefore, from the commencement of our administration, we preferred to proceed in a warlike manner against the common enemy; the rather, because we found that even the few nations (whether situate far or near) who are independent of the King of Spain, could be brought to trade with us in no other way than by declaring themselves in our favor, and showing themselves to be, in fact, enemies of the Spaniards; but principally because we found that the expected service, for the welfare of our Fatherland and the destruction of our hereditary enemy, could not be accomplished by the trifling trade with the Indians, or the tardy cultivation of uninhabited regions; but, in reality,