The embassy of 1622 returned to the Netherlands early in February, 1623. A few weeks later Prince Charles, accompanied by the Duke of Buckingham, was on his way to Madrid to woo in person his prospective Spanish bride. No more conclusive proof could have been shown of the lack of success of Aerssen in obtaining any assurance of armed support from King James for the States in their renewed war with Spain or for the recovery of the Palatinate.
Yet, strangely enough, at this very time of increasing political alienation, four English and two Scottish regiments formed (as indeed was the case throughout the remainder of the eighty years' war) the very kernel of the States army, and campaign after campaign bore the brunt of the fighting. When the Spaniards laid siege to Bergen-op-Zoom in July, 1622, Maurice had reinforced the garrison by fourteen English and Scottish companies. The gallant defence of the town first by Colonel Henderson, then, after this officer fell mortally wounded, by Sir Charles Morgan, excited general admiration in Europe. In October, Spinola, after making repeated and desperate efforts to capture the place, was compelled to raise the siege. These troops were recruited by royal permission in England and Scotland, remained British subjects, and were distinguished by their national uniforms and colours, by the beat of the drum and the march. They were, however, in Dutch pay, and took an oath of allegiance to the States-General, from whom the officers received their commissions.[34]
This same period saw also the beginnings of rivalry in the West as well as in the East. In 1621 a Charter was granted to the Dutch West India Company. This Charter was framed on the model of that of the East India Company, and it was hoped that the new venture might be attended by the same good fortune and phenomenal success as had followed Dutch enterprise in Java and the Malayan Archipelago. Far from being a mere commercial undertaking, it was intended from the first that the West India Company should be required to equip considerable armed forces, naval and military, wherewith to strike a blow at the Spanish power in America, and cut off those sources of revenue which supplied King Philip with the sinews of war. In carrying out such projects of aggression in the Spanish main there was less risk of disputes arising between the Dutch and English than had been the case in the East Indies. Nevertheless, the colonists and traders of the two nationalities were in America also rivals and competitors in the same localities. Netherlanders and Englishmen had already for some years before 1621 been carrying on traffic with the natives and setting up trading posts side by side in the estuary of the Amazon, and in the various river mouths along the coast of Guiana. In 1609, by letters patent, a grant was made by James I to Robert Harcourt, of Stanton Harcourt, in the county of Oxford, for the planting and inhabiting of the whole coast of Guiana between the rivers Amazon and Essequibo, and this grant was renewed to Roger North in 1619, and again by Charles I to the Duke of Buckingham in 1626. Yet within the limits of these grants the Dutch in 1616 established themselves permanently on the river Essequibo, and in 1627 on the river Berbice, while a number of abortive attempts were made to set up trading posts and colonies at other points of this coast. More important than any of these, a settlement had been made in 1614 on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson river, a grant having been given at that date by the States-General to a body of Amsterdam merchants of all unoccupied land between Chesapeake Bay and Newfoundland. This settlement and those in Guiana were in 1622 taken over by the newly erected West India Company. Thus in North America the Dutch took possession of the best harbour on the coast, and their colony of New Netherland with its capital New Amsterdam (afterwards New York) was thrust in like a wedge between the English colonies of Virginia and New England. In the West Indian islands and on the Gold Coast of West Africa the keen traders of the two nations also found themselves side by side, with the result in almost all cases, as has been well said, that the Dutch extracted the marrow, leaving the English the bone.[35] It will at once be seen therefore that the activities of the Dutch West India Company, though it came into being primarily for the purpose of 'bearding the King of Spain in his treasure house', were certain, sooner or later, to come into conflict with English enterprise and to enlarge the area within which their respective interests and claims were divergent.