Venetian Fleets and dispersed into most of the parts of Europe And in those times we find the whole Trade of England was driven by Venetians Florentines and Lombards The Easterlings who were the Inhabitants of the Hans-Towns as Dantzic Lubeick Hamburgh and others upon that Coast fell next into Trade and managed all that of these Northern parts for many years and brought it first down to Bruges and from thence to Antwerp The first Navigations of the Portuguesses to the East-Indies broke the greatness of the Venetian Trade and drew it to Lisbon And the Revolt of the Netherlands that of Antwerp to Holland But in all this time The other and greater Nations of Europe concern'd themselves little in it Their Trade was War Their Counsels and Enterprizes were busied in the quarrels of the Holy Land or in those between the Popes and the Emperors both of the same Forge engaging all Christian Princes and ending in the greatness of the Ecclesiastical State throughout Christendom Sometimes in the mighty Wars between England and France Between France and Spain The more general between Christian and Turks Or more particular quarrels between lesser and Neighbouring-Princes In short The Kingdoms and Principalities were in the World like the Noblemen and Gentlemen in a Countrey The Free-States and Cities like the Merchants and Traders These at first despised by the others The others serv'd and rever'd by them till by the various course of Events in the World Some of these came to grow Rich and Powerful by Industry and Parsimony And some of the others Poor by War and by Luxury Which made the Traders begin to take upon them and carry it like Gentlemen and the Gentlemen begin to take a fancy of falling to Trade By this short account it will appear no wonder either that particular places grew so Rich and so Mighty while they alone enjoyed almost the general Trade of the World nor why not only the Trade in Holland but the advantage of it in general should seem to be lessen'd by so many that share it Another Cause of its decay in that State may be That by the mighty progress of their East-Indy Company The Commodities of that Countrey are grown more than these parts of the World can take off and consequently the Rates of them must needs be lessened while the Charge is encreast by the great Wars the Armies and Forts necessary to maintain or extend the Acquisitions of that Company in the Indies For instead of Five or Six East-Indy Ships which used to make the Fleet of the year they are now risen to Eighteen or Twenty I think Two and twenty came in one year to the United Provinces This is the reason why the particular persons of that Company in Holland make not so great advantage of the same Stock as those of ours do in England Though their Company be very much richer and drives a far greater Trade than ours Which is exhausted by no charge of Armies or Forts or Ships of War And this is the reason that the Dutch are forced to keep so long and so much of those Commodities in their Magazines here and to bring them out only as the Markets call for them or are able to take off And why they bring so much less from the Indies than they were able to do if there were vent enough here As I remember one of their Sea-men newly landed out of their East-Indy Fleet in the year 69 upon discourse in a Boat between Delf and Leyden said he had seen before he came away three heaps of Nutmegs burnt at a time each of which was more than a small Church could hold which he pointed at in a Village that was in sight Another Cause may be the great cheapness of Corn which has been for these dozen years or more general in all these parts of Europe and which has a very great influence upon the Trade of Holland For a great vent of Indian Commodities at least the Spices which are the gross of them used to be made into the Northern parts of Europe in exchange for Corn while it was taken off at good rates by the Markets of Flanders England France Spain or Italy In all which Countreys it has of late years gone so low as to discourage the Import of so great quantities as used to come from Poland and Prussia and other parts of the North. Now the less value those Nations receive for Corn the less they are able to give for Spice Which is a great loss to the Dutch on both sides lessening the vent of their Indian Ware in the Northern and the Traffique of Corn in the Southern parts The cause of this great cheapness of Corn seems to be not so much a course of plentiful and seasonable years As the general Peace that has been in Europe since the year 59 or 60 by which so many Men and so much Land have been turned to Husbandry that were before employ'd in the Wars or lay wasted by them in all the Frontier-Provinces of France and Spain as well as throughout Germany before the Peace of Munster and in England during the Actions or Consequences of a Civil War And Plenty grows not to a heighth but by the Succession of several peaceful as well as seasonable Years The last Cause I will mention is the mighty enlargement of the City of Amsterdam by that which is called the New Town The Extent whereof is so spacious and the Buildings of so much greater Beauty and Cost than the Old that it must have employ'd a vast proportion of that Stock which in this City was before wholly turned to Trade Besides there seems to have been growing on for these later years a greater Vie of Luxury and Expence among many of the Merchants of that Town than was ever formerly known Which was observed and complained of as well as the enlargement of their City by some of the wisest of their Ministers while I resided among them who designed some Regulations by Sumptuary Laws As knowing the very Foundations of their Trade would soon be undermined if the habitual Industry Parsimony and Simplicity of their People came to be over-run by Luxury Idleness and Excess However it happen'd I found it agreed by all the most diligent and circumspect Enquiries I could make That in the years 69 and 70 there was hardly any Forreign Trade among them besides that of the Indies by which the Traders made the returns of their money without loss and none by which the gain was above Two in the hundred So as it seems to be with Trade as with the Sea its Element that has a certain pitch above which it never rises in the highest Tides And begins to ebb as soon as ever it ceases to flow And ever loses ground in one place proportionably to what it gains in another CHAP. VII Of their FORCES and REVENUES THE Strength and Forces of a Kingdom or State were measured in former Ages by the Numbers
Fee to Officers who receive certain constant Salaries from the State which they dare not encrease by any private practises or Extortions So as whoever has a Bill of any publique Debt has so much ready money in his Coffers being paid certainly at call without charge or trouble and assign'd over in any payment like the best Bill of Exchange The extraordinary Revenue is when upon some great occasions or Wars the Generalty agrees to any extraordinary Contributions As sometimes the Hundredth penny of the Estates of all the Inhabitants Pole or Chimney-money Or any other Subsidies and Payments according as they can agree and the occasions require Which have sometimes reached so far as even to an Imposition upon every man that travels in the common ways of their Countrey by Boat or in Coach in Wagon or on Horseback By all these means in the first year of the English War in 1665 There were raised in the Provinces Forty Millions of which Twenty two in the Province of Holland And upon the Bishop of Munster's invading them at the same time by Land they had in the year 66 above Threescore thousand Land-men in pay And a Fleet of above a Hundred great Men of War at Sea The greatness of this Nation at that time seems justly to have raised the glory of Ours Which during the years 65 and 66 maintained a War not only against this Powerful State but against the Crowns of France and Denmark in conjunction with them And All at a time when This Kingdom was forced to struggle at home with the Calamitous Effects of a raging Plague that in Three Months of the first year swept away incredible numbers of people And of a prodigious Fire that in Three days of the Second laid in ashes that Ancient and Famous City of LONDON the Heart and Center of our Commerce and Riches consuming the greatest part of its Buildings and an immense proportion of its Wealth Yet in the midst of these fatal Accidents Those two Summers were renowned with Three Battels of the mightiest Fleets that ever met upon the Ocean Whereof Two were determined by entire and unquestion'd Victories and pursuit of our Enemies into their very Havens The Third having begun by the unfortunate division of our Fleet with the odds of Ninety of their Ships against Fifty of ours And in spight of such disadvantages having continued or been renewed for three days together wherein We were every morning the Aggressors ended at last by the equal and mutual Weakness or Weariness of both Sides The maims of Ships and Tackling with want of Powder and Ammunition Having left undecided the greatest Action that will perhaps appear upon Record of any Story And in this Battel Monsieur De Witt confest to me That we gain'd more Honour to our Nation and to the invincible Courage of our Sea-men than by the other Two Victories That he was sure their men could never have been brought on the two following days after the disadvantages of the first And he believed no other Nation was capable of it but Ours I will not judg how we came to fail of a glorious Peace in the Six Months next succeeding after the fortune of our last Victory and with the Honour of the War But as any rough hand can break a bone whereas much art and care are required to sett it again and restore it to its first strength and proportion So 't is an easie part in a Minister of State to engage a War but 't is given to few to know the times and find the ways of making Peace Yet when after the sensible events of an unfortunate Negligence An indifferent Treaty was concluded at Breda in 67 Within Six Months following By an Alliance with this State in January 68 which was received with incredible Joy and Applause among them His Majesty became the unquestioned Arbiter of all the Affairs of Christendom Made a Peace between the two great Crowns at Aix la Chapelle Which was avowed by all the World to be perfectly His Own And was received with equal Applause of Christian Princes abroad and of his Subjects at home And for three years succeeding by the unshaken Alliance and Dependance of the United States His Majesty remained Absolute Master of the Peace of Christendom and in a posture of giving Bounds to the greatest as well as Protection to the weakest of his Neighbours CHAP. VIII The Causes of their FALL in 1672. IT must be avowed That as This State in the course and progress of its Greatness for so many years past Has shined like a Comet So in the Revolutions of this last Summer It seem'd to fall like a Meteor and has equally amazed the World by the one and the other When we consider such a Power and Wealth as was related in the last Chapter To have fallen in a manner prostrate within the space of one Month So many Frontier Towns renowned in the Sieges and Actions of the Spanish Wars Enter'd like open Villages by the French Troops without defence or almost denial Most of them without any blows at all and all of them with so few Their great Rivers that were esteemed an invincible security to the Provinces of Holland and Utrecht passed with as much ease and as small resistances as little Fords And in short the very Hearts of a Nation so valiant of old against Rome so obstinate against Spain Now subdued and in a manner abandoning all before their Danger appeared We may justly have our recourse to the secret and fixed periods of all Human Greatness for the account of such a Revolution Or rather to the unsearchable Decrees and unresistable force of Divine Providence Though it seems not more impious to question it than to measure it by our Scale Or reduce the Issues and Motions of that Eternal Will and Power to a conformity with what is esteemed Just or Wise or Good by the usual Consent or the narrow Comprehension of poor Mortal men But as in the search and consideration even of things natural and common our Talent I fear is to Talk rather than to Know So we may be allowed to Enquire and Reason upon all things while we do not pretend to Certainty or call that Undeniable Truth which is every day denied by Ten thousand Nor those Opinions Unreasonable which we know to be held by such as we allow to be Reasonable men I shall therefore set down such Circumstances as to me seem most evidently to have conspired in this Revolution leaving the Causes less discernable to the search of more discerning persons And first I take their vast Trade which was an occasion of their Greatness to have been One likewise of their Fall by having wholly diverted the Genius of their Native Subjects and Inhabitants from Arms to Traffique and the Arts of Peace Leaving the whole fortune of their later Wars to be managed by Forreign and Mercenary Troops Which much abased the Courage of their Nation as was observed in
that Matters of Religion were the subject of that Conference and that soon after in the same year came Letters from King Philip to the Dutchess of Parma disclaiming the Interpretation which had been given to his Letters by Count Egmont declaring His Pleasure was That all Hereticks should be put to death without remission That the Emperor's Edicts and the Councel of Trent should be published and observed and commanding That the utmost Assistance of the Civil Power should be given to the Inquisition When this was divulged at first the astonishment was great throughout their Provinces but that soon gave way to their Rage which began to appear in their Looks in their Speeches their bold Meetings and Libels and was encreased by the miserable spectacles of so many Executions upon account of Religion The Constancy of the Sufferers and Compassion of the Beholders conspiring generally to lessen the opinion of Guilt or Crime and highten a detestation of the Punishment and Revenge against the Authors of that Counsel of whom the Duke of Alva was esteemed the Chief In the beginning of the year 1566 began an open Mutiny of the Citizens in many Towns hindring Executions and forcing Prisons and Officers and this was followed by a Confederacy of the Lords Never to suffer the Inquisition in the Low-Countreys as contrary to all Laws both Sacred and Prophane and exceeding the Cruelty of all former Tyrannies Upon which all resolutions of Force or Rigor grew unsafe for the Government now too weak for such a revolution of the people and on the other side Brederode in confidence of the general Favour came in the head of Two hundred Gentlemen thorow the Provinces to Brussels and in bold terms petitioned the Governess for abolishing the Inquisition and Edicts about Religion and that new ones should be fram'd by a Convention of the States The Governess was forced to use gentle Remedies to so violent a Disease to receive the Petition without show of the resentment she had at heart and to promise a representation of their Desires to the King which was accordingly done But though the King was startled with such consequences of his last Commands and at length induced to recall them yet whether by the slowness of his nature or the forms of the Spanish Court the Answer came too late and as all his former Concessions either by delay or testimonies of ill-will or meaning in them had lost the good grace so this lost absolutely the effect and came into the Low-Countreys when all was in flame by an insurrection of the meaner people through many great Towns of Flanders Holland and Utrecht who fell violently upon the spoyl of Churches and destruction of Images with a thousand circumstances of barbarous and brutish fury which with the Institution of Consistories and Magistrates in each Town among those of the Reformed Profession with publike Confederacies and Distinctions and private Contributions agreed upon for the support of their common Cause gave the first date in this year of 1566 to the revolt of the Low-Countreys But the Nobility of the Countrey and the richest of the people in the Cities though unsatisfied with the Government yet feeling the Effects and abhorring the Rage of Popular Tumults as the worst mischief that can befall any State And encouraged by the arrival of the King's Concessions began to unite their Councels and Forces with those of the Governess and to employ themselves both with great Vigor and Loyalty for suppressing the late Insurrections that had seized upon many and shaked most of the Cities of the Provinces in which the Prince of Orange and Count Egmont were great Instruments by the authority of their great Charges One being Governour of Holland and Zealand and the other of Flanders but more by the general love and confidence of the people Till by the reducing Valenciens Maestricht and the Burse by Arms The submission of Antwerp and other Towns The defection of Count Egmont from the Councels of the Confederate Lords as they were called The retreat of the Prince of Orange into Germany and the death of Brederode with the news and preparations of King Philip's sudden journey into the Low-Countreys as well as the Prudence and Moderation of the Dutchess in governing all these circumstances The whole Estate of the Provinces was perfectly restored to its former Peace Obedience and at least Appearance of Loyalty King Philip whether having never really decreed his journey into Flanders or diverted by the pacification of the Provinces and apprehension of the Moors rebelling in Spain or a distrust of his Son Prince Charles his violent Passions and Dispositions or the expectation of what had been resolved at Bayonne growing ripe for execution in France gave over the discourse of seeing the Low-Countreys But at the same time took up the resolution for dispatching the Duke of Alva thither at the head of an Army of Ten thousand Veterane Spanish and Italian Troops for the assistance of the Governess the execution of the Laws the suppressing and punishment of all who had been Authors or Fomentors of the late Seditions This Result was put suddenly in execution though wholly against the Advice of the Dutchess of Parma in Flanders and the Duke of Feria one of the chief Ministers in Spain Who thought the present Peace of the Provinces ought not to be invaded by new occasions nor the Royal Authority lessened by being made a party in a War upon his Subjects nor a Minister employed where he was so professedly both hating and hated as the Duke of Alva in the Low-Countreys But the King was unmovable so that in the end of the year 1567 the Duke of Alva arrived there with an Army of Ten thousand the best Spanish and Italian Soldiers under the Command of the choicest Officers which the Wars of Charles the Fifth or Philip the Second had bred up in Europe which with Two thousand Germans the Dutchess of Parma had raised in the last Tumults and under the Command of so Old and Renowned a General as the Duke of Alva made up a Force which nothing in the Low-Countreys could look in the face with other eyes than of Astonishment Submission or Despair Upon the first report of this Expedition the Trading-people of the Towns and Countrey began in vast numbers to retire out of the Provinces so as the Dutchess wrote to the King That in few days above a Hundred thousand men had left the Countrey and withdrawn both their Money and Goods and more were following every day So great antipathy there ever appears between Merchants and Soldiers whilst one pretends to be safe under Laws which the other pretends shall be subject to his Sword and his Will And upon the first Action of the Duke of Alva after his arrival which was the seizing Count Egmont and Horn as well as the suspected death of the Marquess of Berghen and imprisonment of Montigny in Spain whither some Months before they had been sent
the Spanish Monarchy to oppress them That in their first Coyn they caused a Ship to be stamped labouring among the Waves without Sails or Oars and these words Incertum quo fata ferant I thought so particular a deduction necessary to discover the natural causes of this Revolution in the Low-Countreys which has since had so great a part for near a hundred years in all the Actions and Negotiations of Christendom And to find out the true Incentives of that obstinate love for their Liberties and invincible hatred for the Spanish Nation and Government which laid the foundation of this Common-wealth And this last I take to have been the stronger passion and of the greater effect both in the bold Counsels of contracting their Union and the desperate Resolutions of defending it For not long after The whole Councel of this new State being prest by the extremities of their Affairs passing by the form of Government in the way of a Commonwealth made an earnest and solemn Offer of the Dominion of these Provinces both to England and France but were refused by both Crowns And though they retain'd the Name of a Free People yet they soon lost the ease of the Liberties they contended for by the absoluteness of their Magistrates in the several Cities and Provinces and by the extream pressure of their Taxes which so long a War with so mighty an Enemy made necessary for the support of their State But the hatred of the Spanish Government under Alva was so universal that it made the Revolt general through the Provinces running through all Religions and all Orders of men as appeared by the Pacification of Ghent Till by the division of the Parties by the Powers of so vast a Monarchy as Spain at that time and by the matchless Conduct and Valour of the Duke of Parma This Humour like Poyson in a strong Constitution and with the help of violent Physick was expell'd from the heart which was Flanders and Brabant with the rest of the Ten Provinces into the outward Members and by their being cut off the Body was saved After which the most enflamed spirits being driven by the Arms of Spain or drawn by the hopes of Liberty and Safety into the United Provinces out of the rest the hatred of Spain grew to that heighth that they were not only willing to submit to any new Dominion rather than return to the old but when they could find no Master to protect them and their Affairs grew desperate they were once certainly upon the Counsel of burning their great Towns wasting and drowning what they could of their Countrey and going to seek some new Seats in the Indies Which they might have executed if they had found Shipping enough to carry off all their Numbers and had not been detained by the compassion of those which must have been left behind at the mercy of an incensed and conquering Master The Spanish and Italian Writers content themselves to attribute the causes of these Revolutions to the change of Religion to the native stubbornness of the people and to the Ambition of the Prince of Orange But Religion without mixtures of Ambition and Interest works no such violent effects and produces rather the Examples of constant Sufferings than of desperate Actions The nature of the People cannot change of a sudden no more than the Climate which infuses it and no Countrey hath brought forth better Subjects than many of these Provinces both before and since these Commotions among them And the Ambition of one man could neither have designed nor atchieved so great an Adventure had it not been seconded with universal Discontent Nor could that have been raised to so great a heighth and heat without so many circumstances as fell in from an unhappy course of the Spanish Counsels to kindle and foment it For though it had been hard to Head such a Body and give it so strong a principle of Life and so regular Motions without the accident of so great a Governour in the Provinces as Prince William of Orange A man of equal Abilities in Council and in Arms Cautious and Resolute Affable and Severe Supple to Occasions and yet Constant to his Ends of mighty Revenues and Dependance in the Provinces of great Credit and Alliances in Germany esteemed and honoured abroad but at home infinitely lov'd and trusted by the people who thought him affectionate to their Countrey sincere in his Professions and Designs able and willing to defend their Liberties and unlikely to invade them by any Ambition of his own Yet all these Qualities might very well have been confin'd to the Duty and Services of a Subject as they were in Charles the Fifth's time Without the absence of the King and the peoples opinion of his ill-will to their Nation and their Laws Without the continuance of Forreign Troops after the Wars were ended The erecting of the new Bishops Sees and introducing the Inquisition The sole Ministry of Granvell and exclusion of the Lords from their usual part in Counsels and Affairs The Government of a man so hated as the Duke of Alva The rigour of his Prosecutions and the insolence of his Statue And lastly Without the death of Egmont and the imposition of the Tenth and Twentieth part against the Legal Forms of Government in a Countrey where a long derived Succession had made the people fond and tenacious of their ancient Customs and Laws These were the seeds of their hatred to Spain which encreasing by the course of about Threescore years War was not allay'd by a long succeeding Peace but will appear to have been an Ingredient into the Fall as it was into the Rise of this State which having been thus planted came to be conserved and cultivated by many Accidents and Influences from abroad But those having had no part in the Constitution of their State nor the Frame of their Government I will content my self to mention only the chief of them which most contributed to preserve the Infancy of this Commonwealth and make way for its growth The Causes of its succeeding Greatness and Riches being not to be sought for in the Events of their Wars but in the Institutions and Orders of their Government their Customs and Trade which will make the Arguments of the ensuing Chapters When Don John threw off the Conditions he had at first accepted of the Pacification of Ghent and by the surprize of Namur broke out into Arms The Estate of the Provinces offer'd the Government of their Countrey to Matthias Brother to the Emperor as a temper between their return to the obedience of Spain and the Popular Government which was moulding in the Northern Provinces But Matthias arriving without the advice or support of the Emperor or Credit in the Provinces And having the Prince of Orange given him for his Lieutenant-General was only a Cypher and his Government a piece of Pageantry which past without effect and was soon ended So that upon the Duke of Parma's
also those Manners and Dispositions that tend to the Peace Order and Safety of all Civil Societies and Governments among men Nor could I ever understand how those who call themselves and the world usually calls Religious Men come to put so great weight upon those points of Belief which men never have agreed in and so little upon those of Virtue and Morality in which they have hardly ever disagreed Nor why a State should venture the subversion of their Peace and their Order which are certain Goods for the propagation of uncertain or contested Opinions One of the great Causes of the first Revolt in the Low-Countreys appeared to be The Oppression of men's Consciences or Persecution in their Liberties their Estates and their Lives upon pretence of Religion And this at a time when there seemed to be a conspiring-disposition in most Countreys of Christendom to seek the reformation of some abuses grown in the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church either by the Rust of Time by Negligence or by Human Inventions Passions and Interests The rigid opposition given at Rome to this general Humour was followed by a defection of mighty numbers in all those several Countreys Who professed to reform themselves according to such Rules as they thought were necessary for the reformation of the Church These persons though they agreed in the main of disowning the Papal Power and reducing Belief from the authority of Tradition to that of the Scripture Yet they differ'd much among themselves in other circumstances especially of Discipline according to the Perswasions and Impressions of the Leading-Doctors in their several Countreys So the Reformed of France became universally Calvinists But for those of Germany though they were generally Lutherans yet there was a great mixture both of Calvinists and Anabaptists among them The first Persecutions of these Reformed arose in Germany in the time of Charles the Fifth and drove great numbers of them down into the Seventeen Provinces especially Holland and Brabant where the Priviledges of the Cities were greater and the Emperor's Government was less severe as among the Subjects of his own Native Countreys This was the occasion that in the year 1566 when upon the first Insurrection in Flanders those of the Reformed Profession began to form Consistories and levy Contributions among themselves for support of their Common Cause It was resolved upon consultation among the Heads of them that for declining all differences among themselves at a time of common exigence The publique Profession of their Party should be that of the Lutherans though with liberty and indulgence to those of different Opinions By the Union of Utrecht concluded in 579 Each of the Provinces was left to order the matter of Religion as they thought fit and most conducing to the welfare of their Province With this provision that every man should remain free in his Religion and none be examined or entrapped for that cause according to the Pacification at Gant But in the year 583 it was enacted by general agreement That the Evangelical Religion should be only professed in all the Seven Provinces Which came thereby to be the establisht Religion of this State The Reasons which seem to induce them to this settlement were many and of weight As first Because by the Persecutions arrived in France where all the Reformed were Calvinists multitudes of people had retired out of that Kingdom into the Low Countreys And by the great commerce and continual intercourse with England where the Reformation agreed much with the Calvinists in point of Doctrine though more with the Lutherans in point of Discipline Those Opinions came to be credited and propagated more than any other among the people of these Provinces So as the numbers were grown to be greater far in the Cities of this than of any other Profession Secondly The Succours and Supplies both of Men and Money by which the weak Beginnings of this Commonwealth were Perserved and Fortified came chiefly from England from the Protestants of France when their affairs were successful and from the Calvinist Princes of Germany who lay nearest and were readiest to relieve them In the next place Because those of this Profession seem'd the most contrary and violent against the Spaniards who made themselves Heads of the Roman-Catholiques throughout Christendom And the hatred of Spain and their Dominion was so rooted in the Hearts of this People that it had influence upon them in the very choice of their Religion And lastly Because by this Profession all Rights and Jurisdiction of the Clergy or Hierarchy being suppressed There was no Ecclesiastical Authority left to rise up and trouble or fetter the Civil Power And all the Goods and Possessions of Churches and Abbies were seized wholly into the hands of the State which made a great encrease of the publique Revenue A thing the most necessary for the support of their Government There might perhaps be added one Reason more which was particular to one of the Provinces For whereas in most if not all other parts of Christendom the Clergy composed one of the Three Estates of the Countrey And thereby shar'd with the Nobles and Commons in their Influences upon the Government That Order never made any part of the Estates in Holland nor had any Vote in their Assembly which consisted only of the Nobles and the Cities and this Province bearing always the greatest sway in the Councils of the Union was most enclined to the settlement of that Profession which gave least pretence of Power or Jurisdiction to the Clergy and so agreed most with their own ancient Constitutions Since this Establishment as well as before the great Care of this State has ever been To favour no particular or curious Inquisition into the Faith or Religious Principles of any peaceable man who came to live under the protection of their Laws And to suffer no Violence or Oppression upon any Mans Conscience whose Opinions broke not out into Expressions or Actions of ill consequence to the State A free Form of Government either making way for more freedom in Religion Or else having newly contended so far themselves for Liberty in this point they thought it the more unreasonable for them to oppress others Perhaps while they were so threatened and endanger'd by Forreign Armies they thought it the more necessary to provide against Discontents within which can never be dangerous where they are not grounded or fathered upon Oppression in point either of Religion or Liberty But in those two Cases the Flame often proves most violent in a State the more 't is shut up or the longer concealed The Roman-Catholique Religion was alone excepted from the common protection of their Laws Making Men as the States believed worse Subjects than the rest By the acknowledgment of a Forreign and Superior Jurisdiction For so must all Spiritual Power needs be as grounded upon greater Hopes and Fears than any Civil At least wherever the perswasions from Faith are as strong as those
best Native Commodities and the other drain all the Treasures of the West-Indies By all this account of their Trade and Riches it will appear That some of our Maxims are not so certain as they are current in our common Politicks As first That Example and Encouragement of Excess and Luxury if employ'd in the consumption of Native Commodities is of advantage to Trade It may be so to that which impoverishes but is not to that which enriches a Countrey And is indeed less prejudicial if it lie in Native than in Forreign Wares But the custom or humour of Luxury and Expence cannot stop at certain bounds What begins in Native will proceed in Forreign Commodities and though the Example arise among idle persons yet the Imitation will run into all Degrees even of those men by whose Industry the Nation subsists And besides the more of our own we spend the less we shall have to send abroad and so it will come to pass that while we drive a vast Trade yet by buying much more than we sell we shall come to be poor Whereas when we drove a very small Traffique abroad yet by selling so much more than we bought we were very rich in proportion to our Neighbours This appear'd in Edward the Third's time when we maintain'd so mighty Wars in France and carri'd our Victorious Arms into the heart of Spain Whereas in the 28 year of that King's Reign the Value and Custom of all our Exported Commodities amounted to 294184 l. 17 s. 2 d. And that of our Imported but to 38970 l. 03 s. 06 d. So as there must have enter'd that year into the Kingdom in Coin or Bullion or else have grown a Debt to the Nation 255214 l. 13 s. 08 d. And yet we then carri'd out our Wools unwrought and brought in a great part of our Clothes from Flanders Another common Maxim is That if by any Forreign Invasion or Servitude the State and consequently the Trade of Holland should be ruin'd the last would of course fall to our share in England Which is no consequence For it would certainly break into several pieces and shift either to us to Flanders to the Hans-Towns or any other parts according as the most of those circumstances should any where concur to invite it and the likest to such as appear to have formerly drawn it into Holland By so mighty a confluence of People and so general a vein of Industry and Parsimony among them And whoever pretends to equal their growth in Trade and Riches by other ways than such as are already enumerated will prove I doubt either to deceive or to be deceived A third is That if that State were reduced to great extremities so as to become a Province to some greater Power They would chuse our Subjection rather than any other or those at least that are the Maritime and the Richest of the Provinces But it will be more reasonably concluded from all the former Discourses That though they may be divided by absolute Conquests they will never divide themselves by consent But all fall one way and by common agreement make the best terms they can for their Countrey as a Province if not as a State And before they come to such an extremity they will first seek to be admitted as a Belgick-Circle in the Empire which they were of old and thereby receive the protection of that Mighty Body which as far as great and smaller things may be compar'd seems the likest their own State in its main Constitutions but especially in the Freedom or Soveraignty of the Imperial Cities And this I have often heard their Ministers speak of as their last refuge in case of being threatned by too strong and fatal a Conjuncture And if this should happen the Trade of the Provinces would rather be preserved or encreased than any way broken or destroy'd by such an alteration of their State Because the Liberties of the Countrey would continue what they are and the Security would be greater than now it is The last I will mention is of another vein That if the Prince of Orange were made Soveraign of their Country though by Forreign Arms he would be a great Prince because this now appears to be so great a State Whereas on the contrary those Provinces would soon become a very mean Countrey For such a Power must be maintain'd by force as it would be acquir'd and as indeed all Absolute Dominion must be in those Provinces This would raise general Discontents and those perpetual Seditions among the Towns which would change the Orders of the Countrey endanger the Property of private men And shake the Credit and Safety of the Government Whenever this should happen The People would scatter Industry would faint Banks would dissolve And Trade would decay to such a degree as probably in course of time their very Digues would be no longer maintain'd by the Defences of a weak People against so furious an Invader But the Sea would break in upon their Land and leave their chiefest Cities to be Fisher-Towns as they were of old Without any such great Revolutions I am of opinion That Trade has for some years ago past its Meridian and begun sensibly to decay among them Whereof there seem to be several Causes As first The general application that so many other Nations have made to it within these two or three and twenty years For since the Peace of Munster which restor'd the quiet of Christendom in 1648 not only Sueden and Denmark but France and England have more particularly than ever before busied the thoughts and counsels of their several Governments as well as the humours of their People about the matters of Trade Nor has this happen'd without good degrees of Success though Kingdoms of such extent that have other and Nobler Foundations of Greatness cannot raise Trade to such a pitch as this little State which had no other to build upon No more than a man who has a fair and plentiful Estate can fall to Labour and Industry like one that has nothing else to trust to for the support of his life But however all these Nations have come of late to share largely with them And there seem to be grown too many Traders for Trade in the World So as they can hardly live one by another As in a great populous Village the first Grocer or Mercer that sets up among them grows presently rich having all the Custom till another encouraged by his success comes to set up by him and share in his gains At length so many fall to the Trade that nothing is got by it and some must give over or all must break Not many Ages past Venice and Florence possest all the Trade of Europe The last by their Manufactures But the first by their Shipping and the whole Trade of Persia and the Indies whose Commodities were brought Those by Land and These by the Arabian-Sea to Egypt from whence they were fetcht by the