The decisions of merchants and politicians in London, as well as the shifting tastes of Western consumers, would soon end the Dutch golden age. Ironically, Willem Ill’s capture of the English crown set in train events that cleared the way for England to replace Holland as the world’s economic and military superpower. The era of spices was coming to an end, and Britons, frozen out of the East Indies, turned their attention north to India and China, and west to the Caribbean and Africa, where they would prosper from the commodities of the future: cotton, tea, sugar, opium, and slaves.
