Note 3 — Government Matters
Reading edition
Referring to the Dutch East India Company, formed by the consolidation (1602) of the various trading companies in the Orient, by the States-General of Holland. This was for many years one of the richest and most successful of the world’s great commercial associations; but in the eighteenth century its condition became one of decline. When Holland and Belgium were conquered by France, in 1795, the Dutch East India Company was practically abolished. Thereafter, until 1808, the Dutch Indias were administered by a committee of the States-General, and in the latter year their government was formally vested in the Dutch nation, which has from that time retained it.