among them and the Sums only disputed between the Prince and the States To establish the Fourteen Bishops he had agreed with the Pope should be added to the Three that were anciently in the Low-Countreys To revive the Edicts of Charles the Fifth against Luther publish't in a Diet of the Empire about the year 1550 but eluded in the Low-Countreys even in that Emperor's time and thereby to make way for the Inquisition with the same course it had received in Spain of which the Lutherans here and the Moors there were made an equal pretence And these Points as they came to be owned and executed made the first Commotions of mens minds in the Provinces The hatred of the people against the Spaniards and the Insolencies of those Troops with the charge of their support made them look't upon by the Inhabitants in general as the Instruments of their Oppression and Slavery and not of their Defence when a general Peace had left them no Enemies And therefore the States began here their Complaints with a general Consent and Passion of all the Nobles as well as Towns and Countrey And upon the Delays that were contrived or fell in the States first refused to raise any more moneys either for the Spaniards pay or their own standing-Troops and the people run into so great despair that in Zealand they absolutely gave over the working at their Digues suffering the Sea to gain every Tide upon the Countrey and resolving as they said rather to be devoured by that Element than by the Spanish Soldiers So that after many Disputes and Intrigues between the Governess and the Provinces the King upon her Remonstrances was induced to their removal which was accordingly performed with great joy and applause of the people The erecting of Fourteen new Bishops Sees raised the next Contest The great Lords lookt upon this Innovation as a lessening of their Power by introducing so many new men into the great Council The Abbots out of whose Lands they were to be endowed pleaded against it as a violent usurpation upon the Rights of the Church and the Will of the Dead who had given those Lands to a particular use The Commons murmured at it as a new degree of Oppression upon their Conscience or Liberty by the erecting so many new Spiritual Courts of Judicature and so great a number of Judges being Seventeen for Three that were before in the Countrey and those depending absolutely upon the Pope or the King And all men declaimed against it as a breach of the Kings Oath at his accession to the Government for the preserving the Church and the Laws in the same state he found them However this Point was gain'd intirely by the Governess and carried over the head of all opposition though not without leaving a general discontent In the midst of these ill Humours stirring in Flanders the Wars of Religion breaking out in France drove great numbers of Calvinists into all those parts of the Low-Countreys that confine upon France as the Troubles of Germany had before of Lutherans into the Provinces about the Rhyne and the Persecutions under Queen Mary those of the Church of England into Flanders and Brabant by the great commerce of this Kingdom with Bruges and Antwerp These Accidents and Neighbourhoods filled these Countreys in a small tract of time with swarms of the Reformed Professors And the admiration of their Zeal the opinion of their Doctrine and Piety the compassion of their Sufferings the infusion of their Discontents or the Humour of the Age gain'd them every day many Proselytes in the Low-Countreys some among the Nobles many among the Villages but most among the Cities whose Trade and Riches were much encreased by these new Inhabitants and whose Interest thereby as well as Conversation drew them on to their favour This made work for the Inquisition though moderately exercised by the prudence and temper of the Governess mediating between the rigor of Granvell in straining up to the highest his Master's Authority and the execution of his Commands upon all occasions And the resoluteness of the Lords of the Provinces to temper the King's Edicts and protect the Liberties of their Countrey against the admission of this New and Arbitrary Judicature unknown to all ancient Laws and Customs of the Countrey and for that not less odious to the people than for the cruelty of their executions For before the Inquisition the care of Religion was in the Bishops and before that in the Civil Magistrates throughout the Provinces Upon angry Debates in Council but chiefly upon the universal Ministry of Granvell a Burgundian of mean birth grown at last to be a Cardinal and more famous for the greatness of his Parts than the goodness of his Life The chief Lords of the Countrey among whom the Prince of Orange Counts Egmont and Horn the Marquess of Bergen and Montigny were most considerable grew to so violent and implacable a hatred of the Cardinal whether from Passion or Interest which was so universally spread through the whole Body of the People either by the Causes of it or the Example That the Lords first refused their attendance in Council protesting Not to endure the sight of a man so absolute there and to the ruin of their Countrey And afterwards petitioned the King in the name of the whole Countrey for his removal Upon the delay whereof and the continuance of the Inquisition the people appeared upon daily occasions and accidents heated to that degree as threatned a general Combustion in the whole Body when ever the least Flame should break out in any part But the King at length consented to Granvell's recess by the opinion of the Dutchess of Parma as well as the pursuit of the Provinces Whereupon the Lords reassumed their places in Council Count Egmont was sent into Spain to represent the Grievances of the Provinces and being favourably dispatcht by the King especially by remitting the rigor of the Edicts about Religion and the Inquisition All noise of discontent and tumult was appeased the Lords were made use of by the Governess in the Council and conduct of Affairs and the Governess was by the Lords both obeyed and honoured In the beginning of the year 1565 there was a Conference at Bayonne between Katharine Queen-Mother of France and her Son Charles the Ninth though very young with his Sister Isabella Queen of Spain In which no other person but the Duke of Alva interven'd being deputed thither by Philip who excused his own presence and thereby made this Enterview pass for an effect or expression of kindness between the Mother and her Children Whether great Resolutions are the more suspected where great Secresie is observed or it be true what the Prince of Orange affirmed to have by accident discovered That the extirpation of all Families which should profess the New Religion in the French or Spanish Dominions was here agreed on with mutual assistance of the two Crowns 'T is certain and was owned
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
Towns and nature of their Government So two others have grown with the course of time and progress of their Riches and Power One is the Reputation of their Government arising from the observation of the Success of their Arms the Prudence of their Negotiations the Steddiness of their Counsels the Constancy of their Peace and Quiet at home and the Consideration they hereby arrived at among the Princes and States of Christendom From all these men grew to a general opinion of the Wisdom and Conduct of their State and of its being establisht upon Foundations that could not be shaken by any common Accidents nor consequently in danger of any great or sudden Revolutions And this is a mighty inducement to industrious people to come and inhabit a Countrey who seek not only safety under Laws from Injustice and Oppression but likewise under the strength and good conduct of a State from the violence of Forreign Invasions or of Civil Commotions The other is the great Beauty of their Countrey forced in time and by the improvements of Industry in spight of Nature Which draws every day such numbers of curious and idle persons to see their Provinces though not to inhabit them And indeed their Countrey is a much better Mistress than a Wife and where few persons who are well at home would be content to live but where none that have time and money to spare would not for once be willing to travel And as England shows in the beauty of the Countrey what Nature can arrive at so does Holland in the number greatness and beauty of their Towns whatever Art can bring to pass But these and many other matters of Speculation among them filling the Observations of all common Travellers shall make no part of mine whose design is rather to discover the Causes of their Trade and Riches than to relate the Effects Yet it may be noted hereupon as a piece of wisdom in any Kingdom or State By the Magnificence of Courts or of Publique Structures By encouraging beauty in private Buildings and the adornment of Towns with pleasant and regular plantations of Trees By the celebration of some Noble Festivals or Solemnities By the institution of some great Marts or Fairs and by the contrivance of any extraordinary and renowned Spectacles To invite and occasion as much and as often as can be the concourse of busie or idle people from the neighbouring or remoter Nations whose very passage and intercourse is a great encrease of Wealth and of Trade and a secret incentive of people to inhabit a Countrey where men may meet with equal advantages and more entertainments of life than in other places Such were the Olimpick and other Games among the Grecians Such the Triumphs Trophees and Secular Plays of old Rome as well as the Spectacles exhibited afterwards by the Emperors with such stupendious effects of Art and Expence for courting or entertertaining the people Such the Jubilees of new Rome The Justs and Tournaments formerly used in most of the Courts of Christendom The Festivals of the more celebrated Orders of Knighthood And in particular Towns the Carnavals and Faires The Kirmeshes which run through all the Cities of the Netherlands and in some of them with a great deal of Pageantry as well as Traffique being equal baits of Pleasure and of Gain Having thus discover'd what has laid the great Foundations of their Trade by the multitude of their People which has planted and habituated Industry among them and by that all sorts of Manufacture As well as Parsimony and thereby general Wealth I shall enumerate very briefly some other Circumstances that seem next to these the chief Advancers and Encouragers of Trade in their Countrey Low Interest and deerness of Land are effects of the multitude of People and cause so much Money to lye ready for all Projects by which gain may be expected as the cutting of Canals making Bridges and Cawsies leveling Downs and draining Marshes besides all new essays at Forreign Trade which are proposed with any probability of advantage The use of their Banks which secures Money and makes all Payments easie and Trade quick The Sale by Registry which was introduced here and in Flanders in the time of Charles the Fifth and makes all Purchases safe The Severity of Justice not only against all Thefts but all Cheats and Counterfeits of any Publique Bills which is capital among them and even against all common Beggars who are disposed of either into Work-houses or Hospitals as they are able or unable to labour The Convoys of Merchant-Fleets into all parts even in time of Peace but especially into the Streights which give their Trade security against many unexpected accidents and their Nation credit abroad and breeds up Sea-men for their Ships of War The lowness of their Customs and easiness of paying them which with the freedom of their Ports invite both Strangers and Natives to bring Commodities hither not only as to a Market but as to a Magazine where they lodg till they are invited abroad to other and better Markets Order and Exactness in managing their Trade which brings their Commodities in credit abroad This was first introduced by severe Laws and Penalties but is since grown into custom Thus there have been above Thirty several Placarts about the manner of curing pickling and barreling Herrings Thus all Arms made at Utrecht are forfeited if sold without mark or marked without trial And I observed in their Indian-House that all the pieces of Scarlet which are sent in great quantities to those parts are marked with the English Arms and Inscriptions in English by which they maintain the credit gain'd to that Commodity by our former trade to parts where 't is now lost or decay'd The Government manag'd either by men that trade or whose Families have risen by it or who have themselves some Interest going in other men's Traffique or who are born and bred in Towns The soul and beeing whereof consists wholly in Trade Which makes sure of all favour that from time to time grows necessary and can be given it by the Government The custom of every Towns affecting some particular Commerce or Staple valuing it self thereupon and so improving it to the greatest heighth as Flussingue by that of the West-Indies Middleburgh of French-Wines Terveer by the Scotch Staple Dort by the English Staple and Rhenish-Wines Rotterdam by the Rnglish and Scotch Trade at large and by French-Wines Leyden by the Manufacture of all sorts of Stuffs Silk Hair Gold and Silver Haerlem by Linnen Mixt-Stuffs and Flowers Delf by Beer and Dutch-Purcelane Surdam by the built of Ships Enchusyen and Mazlandsluys by Herring-fishing Friezland by the Greenland-Trade and Amsterdam by that of the East-Indies Spain and the Streights The great application of the whole Province to the Fishing-Trade upon the Coasts of England and Scotland which employs an incredible number of Ships and Sea-men and supplies most of the Southern parts of Europe with a rich and
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