Holland. Second great Dutch expedition to the Indies: eight ships commanded by Jacob van Neck. It brought home 10 tons of pepper, as well as nutmeg, mace, and cloves. Its arrival in the port of Amsterdam is immortalized in Hendrick Vroom’s painting “The Return of the Second Expedition from the Indies.” The expedition reached the true source of spices: the islands of Ternate and Tidore in the Moluccas for cloves, and the remote Banda Islands, where the nutmeg tree grows. Finally, it established a very useful supply station on the island, which would later be named Mauritius, in honor of the leader of the United Provinces of the Netherlands: Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange. Profits exceeded 400%. In just a few years, over 60 Dutch ships traveled to and from the Indies, in a race where everyone was against everyone else, until the East India Company was founded in 1602.
