First: .. The Company hath ... employed over six thousand, as well soldiers as seamen, and over eight or nine thousand during the last year. ...
Secondly: Regarding duties
The company imported an excessively large amount of costly wares, such as Cochineal (red dyel, Silk, Indigo, an innumerable quantity of Sugars, Hides, Ginger and other spices, Cotton, Elephants teeth, Tobacco, Brazil
and other woods, Salt, Gums, etc., from the exportation of which to other countries the State had the benefit of large duties. Thirdly: By the increase of the Trade and Wealth of the Commonalty
The said Company brought into the country a very large amount of gold and silver, both coined and uncoined; exported a vast quantityof all sorts of manufactures, most of which were made here; for the trade to Guinea alone requires, for all descriptions of manufactures, an annual outlay of above five tons of gold, and returns yearly into the country over ten tons of gold. In like manner, a large quantity of goods was shipped to other parts of
Africa and America, in return for which many other goods were imported, whereby the inhabitants of this country obtained trade and employment.
Fourthly: By strengthening the CountryThe Company hath, at present, about one hundred and twenty well built
ships, ... all as well supplied with metal and iron pieces [weapons], and suitable ammunition, as any of the enemy's best and largest vessels. One-third, or in case of need, fully one-half of those can almost always be employed in the public service.
1. In what way does this document express the common political and economic belief of European powers at the time of its writing?
2. What information not appearing in this document might illustrate the difference between the overall approach and execution of the Dutch West India Company and that of the Virginia Company?