CHAPTER XXXVI. Commercial prospects of Holland--Travels of John Huygen van Linschoten Their effect on the trade and prosperity of the Netherlands--Progress of nautical and geographical science--Maritime exploration--Fantastic notions respecting the polar regions--State of nautical science--First arctic expedition--Success of the voyagers--Failure of the second expedition--Third attempt to discover the north-east passage--Discovery of Spitzbergen-- Scientific results of the voyage--Adventures in the frozen regions-- Death of William Barendz--Return of the voyagers to Amsterdam-- Southern expedition against the Spanish power--Disasters attendant upon it--Extent of Dutch discovery.During a great portion of Philip's reign the Netherlanders, despite theirrebellion, had been permitted to trade with Spain. A spectacle had thusbeen presented of a vigorous traffic between two mighty belligerents, whoderived from their intercourse with each other the means of morethoroughly carrying on their mutual hostilities. The war fed theircommerce, and commerce fed their war. The great maritime discoveries atthe close of the fifteenth century had enured quite as much to thebenefit of the Flemings and Hollanders as to that of the Spaniards andPortuguese, to whom they were originally due. Antwerp and subsequentlyAmsterdam had thriven on the great revolution of the Indian trade whichVasco de Gama's voyage around the Cape had effected. The nations of theBaltic and of farthest Ind now exchanged their products on a moreextensive scale. and with a wider sweep across the earth than when themistress of the Adriatic alone held the keys of Asiatic commerce. Thehaughty but intelligent oligarchy of shopkeepers, which had grown so richand attained so eminent a political position from its magnificentmonopoly, already saw the sources of its grandeur drying up before itseyes, now that the world's trade--for the first time in human history--had become oceanic.