textiles and 80% of silks import from the India's Mughal Empire, chiefly from its most developed region known as Bengal Subah. In the 18th century, the Dutch colonial empire began to decline as a result of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of 1780–1784, in which the Dutch Republic lost a number of its colonial possessions and trade monopolies to the British Empire, along with the conquest of the Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey by the British East India Company. Nevertheless, major portions of the empire survived until the advent of global decolonisation following World War II, namely the East Indies and Dutch Guiana. Three former colonial territories in the West Indies islands around the Caribbean Sea—Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten—remain as constituent countries represented within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Former Dutch colonial possessions This list does not include several former trading posts stationed by Dutch, such as Dejima in Japan. Dutch East Indies with company rule (1603–1949), and Dutch New Guinea (until 1962) Dutch India (1605–1825) Dutch Gold Coast (1612–1872) New Netherlands (1614–1667, 1673–1674) Dutch Guianas (1616–1975) Dutch Formosa (1624–1662), and Keelung (Fort Noord-Holland; 1663–1668) Dutch Virgin Islands (1625–1680) Dutch Bengal (1627–1825) Dutch Brazil (1630–1654) Dutch Mauritius (1638–1710) Dutch Ceylon (1640–1796) Dutch Malacca (1641–1795, 1818–1825) Dutch Cape Colony (1652–1806) Dutch Malabar (1665–1795) Dutch Surinam (1667–1954) New Holland (Acadia) (1674–1678) History Origins (1543–1602) The territories that would later form the Dutch Republic began as a loose federation known as the Seventeen Provinces, which Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and (as "Carlos I") King of Spain, inherited and brought under his direct rule in 1543. In 1566, the Protestant Dutch Revolt broke out against rule by Catholic Spain, sparking the Eighty Years' War. Led by William of Orange, independence was declared in the 1581 Act of Abjuration. The revolt resulted in the establishment of a de facto independent Protestant republic in the north by Treaty of Antwerp (1609), but the Dutch were never able to successfully remove the Spanish foothold in the southern Netherlands. The eight decades of war came at a massive human cost, with an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 victims, of which 350,000 to 400,000 were civilians killed by disease and what would later be considered war crimes. The coastal provinces of Holland and Zeeland had been important hubs of the European maritime trade network for centuries prior to Spanish rule. Their geographical location provided convenient access to