62 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO they supervised the Company's instructions to its serv- ants; and they left in the hands of the Company until 1638 a sum of twenty-five thousand florins (£2000) due for the charter of 1602. The Council of Seventeen was, in fact, a sort of elected Board of Control, intermediate between the Dutch Company and the States-General, somewhat, although by no means exactly, like the Board of Control established nearly two centuries later between the English East India Company and Parlia- ment. The qualification for a director in the four leading Chambers was £500 and £250 in the two minor ones. The directors and their staff were to be remunerated by one per cent, on the cargoes. A general reckoning was to be made every ten years, at which periods share- holders might reclaim their subscriptions and withdraw. The shares were ordinary ones of £250 each, and " head- participant " shares of £500. The subscription was thrown open to the whole population of Holland. But practically the first expedition in 1602 consisted of the ships belonging to the previous separate companies and taken over from them by the United Dutch Com- pany. So high rose the tide of national enthusiasm that even ruined Antwerp, bleeding and mangled in the claws of Spain, found money for shares. Her clandes- tine subscriptions, through agents at Amsterdam and Middelburg, roused the wrath of her oppressors, and an Antwerp merchant was condemned to lifelong impris- onment for this offence. The great Company, with its j
