Paradoxically, the real beneficiary of the Anglo-Persian seizure of Hormuz was the VOC.31 The nominal victors at Hormuz, the Persians and the English, derived little benefit from their newly won command of the Gulf, the former because they had no merchant fleet, and the latter because they no longer had Moluccan spices to ship to the caravans at Persian Gulf ports. The Dutch had almost totally frozen the English out of the spice trade, and not until the end of the seventeenth century would the EIC be able to exploit other commodities and once again challenge the VOC.
