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
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
Effects that are in it but in the Credit of the whole Town or State of Amsterdam whose Stock and Revenue is equal to that of some Kingdoms and who are bound to make good all Moneys that are brought into their Bank The Tickets or Bills hereof make all the usual great Payments that are made between man and man in the Town and not only in most other places of the United Provinces but in many other Trading-parts of the World So as this Bank is properly a general Cash where every man lodges his money because he esteems it safer and easier paid in and out than if it were in his Coffers at home And the Bank is so far from paying any Interest for what is there brought in that Money in the Bank is worth something more in common Payments than what runs current in Coyn from hand to hand No other money passing in the Bank but in the species of Coyn the best known the most ascertain'd and the most generally current in all parts of the Higher as well as the Lower Germany The Revenues of Amsterdam arise out of the constant Excise upon all sorts of Commodities bought and sold within the Precinct Or out of the Rents of those Houses or Lands that belong in common to the City Or out of certain Duties and Impositions upon every House towards the uses of Charity and the Repairs or Adornments or Fortifications of the place Or else out of extraordinary Levies consented to by the Senate for furnishing their part of the Publique Charge that is agreed to by their Deputies in the Provincial-States for the use of the Province Or by the Deputies of the States of Holland in the States-General for support of the Union And all these Payments are made into one Common Stock of the Town not as many of ours are into that of the Parish So as attempts may be easier made at the calculations of their whole Revenue And I have heard it affirmed That what is paid of all kinds to Publique Uses of the States-General the Province and the City in Amsterdam amounts to above Sixteen hundred thousand pounds Sterling a year But I enter into no Computations nor give these for any thing more than what I have heard from men who pretended to make such Enquiries which I confess I did not 'T is certain that in no Town Strength Beauty and Convenience are better provided for nor with more unlimited Expence than in this by the Magnificence of their Publique Buildings as Stadthouse and Arsenals The Number and Spaciousness as well as Order and Revenues of their many Hospitals The commodiousness of their Canals running through the chief Streets of passage The mighty strength of their Bastions and Ramparts And the neatness as well as convenience of their Streets so far as can be compassed in so great a confluence of industrious people All which could never be atchieved without a Charge much exceeding what seems proportioned to the Revenue of one single Town The Senate chuses the Deputies which are sent from this City to the States of Holland The Soveraignty whereof is represented by Deputies of the Nobles and Towns composing Nineteen Voices Of which the Nobles have only the first and the Cities eighteen according to the number of those which are called Stemms The other Cities and Towns of the Province having no voice in the States These Cities were originally but Six Dort Haerlem Delf Leyden Amsterdam and Tergoâ— But were encreased by Prince William of Nassaw to the number of Eighteen by the addition of Rotterdam Gorcum Schedam Schonoven Briel Alcmaer Horne Enchusen Edam Moninckdam Medenblick and Permeren This makes as great an inequality in the Government of the Province by such a small City as Permeren having an equal voice in the the Provincial-States with Amsterdam which pays perhaps half of all charge of the Province as seems to be in the States-General by so small a Province as Overyssel having an equal voice in the States-General with that of Holland which contributes more than half to the general charge of the Union But this was by some Writers of that Age interpreted to be done by the Prince's Authority to lessen that of the Nobles and balance that of the greater Cities by the voices of the smaller whose dependances were easier to be gained and secured The Nobles though they are few in this Province yet are not represented by all their number but by Eight or Nine who as Deputies from their Body have session in the States-Provincial And who when one among them dyes chuse another to succeed him Though they have all together but one voice equal to the smallest Town yet are they very considerable in the Government by possessing many of the best Charges both Civil and Military by having the direction of all the Ecclesiastical Revenue that was seized by the State upon the change of Religion and by sending their Deputies to all the Councils both of the Generalty and the Province and by the nomination of one Councellor in the two great Courts of Justice They give their Voice first in the Assembly of the States and thereby a great weight to the business in consultation The Pensioner of Holland is seated with them delivers their Voice for them and assists at all their Deliberations before they come to the Assembly He is properly but Minister or Servant of the Province and so his Place or Rank is behind all their Deputies but has always great Credit because he is perpetual or seldom discharged though of right he ought to be chosen or renewed every third year He has place in all the several Assemblies of the Province and in the States proposes all Affairs gathers the Opinions and forms or digests the Resolutions Pretending likewise a power not to conclude any very important Affair by plurality of Voices when he judges in his Conscience he ought not to do it and that it will be of ill consequence or prejudice to the Province The Deputies of the Cities are drawn out of the Magistrates and Senate of each Town Their Number is uncertain and arbitrary according to the Customs or Pleasure of the Cities that send them because they have all together but one Voice and are all maintained at their Cities charge But commonly one of the Burgomasters and the Pensioner are of the number The States of Holland have their Session in the Court at the Hague and assemble ordinarily four times a year in February June September and November In the former Sessions they provide for the filling up of all vacant Charges and for renewing the Farms of all the several Taxes and for consulting about any matters that concern either the general good of the Province or any particular differences arising between the Towns But in November they meet purposely to resolve upon the continuance of the Charge which falls to the share of their Province the following year according to what may have been agreed upon by the
surprising than in any place I know so as a warm faint Air turns in a night to a sharp Frost with the Wind coming into the North-east And the contrary with another change of Wind. The Spring is much shorter and less agreeable than with us the Winter much colder and some parts of the Summer much hotter and I have known more than once the violence of one give way to that of the other like the cold fit of an Ague to the hot without any good temper between The flatness of their Land exposes it to the danger of the Sea and forces them to infinite charge in the continual fences and repairs of their Banks to oppose it Which employ yearly more men than all the Corn of the Province of Holland could maintain as one of their chief Ministers has told me They have lately found the common Sea-weed to be the best Material for these Digues which fastens with a thin mixture of Earth yeilds a little to the force of the Sea and returns when the Waves give back Whether they are thereby the safer against Water as they say Houses that shake are against Wind or whether as pious Naturalists observe all things carry about them that which serves for a Remedy against the Mischiefs they do in the world The extream moisture of the Air I take to be the occasion of the great neatness in their Houses and cleanliness in their Towns For without the help of those Customs their Countrey would not be habitable by such Crowds of people but the Air would corrupt upon every hot season and expose the Inhabitants to general and infectious Diseases Which they hardly escape three Summers together especially about Leyden where the Waters are not so easily renewed and for this reason I suppose it is that Leyden is found to be the neatest and cleanest kept of all their Towns The same moisture of Air makes all Metals apt to rust and Wood to mould which forces them by continual pains of rubbing and scouring to seek a prevention or cure This makes the brightness and cleanness that seems affected in their Houses and is call'd natural to them by people who think no further So the deepness of their Soil and wetness of Seasons which would render it unpassable forces them not only to exactness of paving in their Streets but to the expence of so long Cawsies between many of their Towns and in their High-ways As indeed most National Customs are the Effect of some unseen or unobserved natural Causes or Necessities CHAP. IV. Of their People and Dispositions THE People of Holland may be divided into these several Classes The Clowns or Boors as they call them who cultivate the Land The Mariners or Schippers who supply their Ships and Inland-Boats The Merchants or Traders who fill their Towns The Renteeners or men that live in all their chief Cities upon the Rents or Interest of Estates formerly acquired in their Families And the Gentlemen and Officers of their Armies The first are a Race of people diligent rather than laborious dull and slow of understanding and so not dealt with by hasty words but managed easily by soft and fair and yeilding to plain Reason if you give them time to understand it In the Countrey and Villages not too near the great Towns they seem plain and honest and content with their own so that if in bounty you give them a shilling for what is worth but a groat they will take the current price and give you the rest again if you bid them take it they know not what you mean and sometimes ask if you are a Fool. They know no other Good but the supply of what Nature requires and the common encrease of Wealth They feed most upon Herbs Roots and Milks and by that means I suppose neither their Strength nor Vigor seems answerable to the Size or Bulk of their Bodies The Mariners are a plain but much rougher people whether from the Element they live in or from their Food which is generally Fish and Corn and heartier than that of the Boors They are surly and ill-manner'd which is mistaken for Pride but I believe is learnt as all Manners are by the conversation we use Now theirs lying only among one another or with Winds and Waves which are not mov'd or wrought upon by any language or observance or to be dealt with but by Pains and by Patience These are all the Qualities their Mariners have learnt their Valour is passive rather than active and their Language is little more than what is of necessary use to their Business The Merchants and Trades-men both the greater and Mechanick living in Towns that are of great resort both by strangers and passengers of their own Are more Mercurial Wit being sharpned by commerce and conversation of Cities though they are not very inventive which is the gift of warmer heads yet are they great in imitation and so far many times as goes beyond the Originals Of mighty Industry and constant application to the Ends they propose and pursue They make use of their Skill and their Wit to take advantage of other men's Ignorance and Folly they deal with Are great Exacters where the Law is in their own hands In other points where they deal with men that understand like themselves and are under the reach of Justice and 〈◊〉 they are the plainest and best dealers in the world Which seems not to grow so much from a Principle of Conscience or Morality as from a Custom or Habit introduced by the necessity of Trade among them which depends as much upon Common-Honesty as War does upon Discipline and without which all would break up Merchants would turn Pedlars and Soldiers Thieves Those Families which live upon their Patrimonial Estates in all the great Cities are a people differently bred and manner'd from the Traders though like them in the modesty of Garb and Habit and the Parsimony of living Their Youth are generally bred up at Schools and at the Universities of Leyden or Utrecht in the common studies of Human Learning but chiefly of the Civil Law which is that of their Countrey at least as far as it is so in France and Spain For as much as I understand of those Countreys No Decisions or Decrees of the Civil Law nor Constitutions of the Roman Emperors have the force or current of Law among them as is commonly believed but only the force of Reasons when alledged before their Courts of Judicature as far as the Authority of men esteemed wise passes for Reason But the ancient Customs of those several Countreys and the Ordonnances of their Kings and Princes consented to by the Estates or in France verified by Parliaments have only the strength and authority of Law among them Where these Families are rich their Youths after the course of their studies at home travel for some years as the Sons of our Gentry use to do but their journeys are chiefly into England and France not