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
Italy and Greece were stiled so by the Romans but whose Victories in obtaining new Seats and Orders in possessing them might make us allow them for a better polici'd people than they appeared by the vastness of their Multitude or the rage of their Battels VVherever they past and seated their Colonies and Dominions they left a Constitution which has since been called in most European Languages The States consisting of Three Orders Noble Ecclesiastical and Popular under the limited Principality of one Person with the stile of King Prince Duke or Count. The remainders at least or traces hereof appear still in all the Principalities founded by those people in Italy France and Spain and were of a piece with the present Constitutions in most of the great Dominions on t'other side the Rhyne And it seems to have been a temper first introduced by them between the Tyranny of the Eastern Kingdoms and the Liberty of the Grecian or Roman Commonwealths 'T is true the Goths were Gentiles when they first broke into the Roman Empire till one great swarm of this people upon treaty with one of the Roman Emperors and upon Concessions of a great Tract of Land to be a Seat for their Nation embraced at once the Christian Faith After which the same people breaking out of the limits had been allowed them and by fresh numbers bearing all down where they bent their march as they were a great means of propagating Religion in many parts of Europe where they extended their Conquests so the zeal of these new Proselytes warmed by the veneration they had for their Bishops and Pastors and enriched by the spoyls and possessions of so vast Countreys seem to have been the First that introduced the maintenance of the Churches and Clergy by endowments of Lands Lordships and Vassals appropriated to them For before this time the Authority of the Priesthood in all Religions seemed wholly to consist in the peoples opinion of their Piety Learning and Virtues or a reverence for their Character and Mystical Ceremonies and Institutions their Support or their Revenues in the voluntary Oblations of pious men the Bounty of Princes or in a certain share out of the Labours and Gains of those who lived under their Cure and not in any subjection of mens Lives or Fortunes which belonged wholly to the Civil Power And Ammianus though he taxes the Luxury of the Bishops in Valentinian's time yet he speaks of their Riches which occasioned or fomented it as arising wholly from the Oblations of the people But the Devotion of these new Christians introducing this new form of endowing their Churches and afterwards Pepin and Charlemaign King of the Franks upon their Victories in Italy and the favour of the Roman Bishop to their Title and Arms having annexed great Territories and Jurisdictions to that See This Example or Custom was followed by most Princes of the Northern Races through the rest of Europe and brought into the Clergy great possessions of Lands and by a necessary consequence a great share of Temporal Power from the dependances of their Subjects or Tenants by which means they came to be generally one of the Three Orders that composed the Assembly of the States in every Countrey This Constitution of the States had been establisht from time immemorial in the several Provinces of the Low-Countreys and was often assembled for determining Disputes about succession of their Princes where doubtful or contested For deciding those between the great Towns For raising a Milice for the defence of their Countreys in the wars of their Neighbours For Advice in time of Dangers abroad or Discontents at home But always upon the new Succession of a Prince and upon any new Impositions that were necessary on the people The use of this Assembly was another of those Liberties whereof the Inhabitants of these Provinces were so fond and so tenacious The rest besides those ancient Priviledges already mentioned of their Towns were Concessions and Graces of several Princes in particular Exemptions or Immunities Jurisdiction both in choice and exercise of Magigistracy and Civil Judicature within themselves or else in the customs of using none but Natives in Charges and Offices and passing all weighty Affairs by the great Council composed of the great Lords of the Countrey who were in a manner all Temporal there being but three Bishops in all the Seventeen Provinces till the time of Philip the second of Spain The Revenues of these Princes consisted in their ancient Demesnes in small Customs which yet grew considerable by the greatness of Trade in the Maritime Towns and in the voluntary Contributions of their Subjects either in the States or in particular Cities according to the necessities of their Prince or the affections of the people Nor were these frequent for the Forces of these Counts were composed of such Lords who either by their Governments or other Offices or by the tenure of their Lands were obliged to attend their Prince on Horse-back with certain numbers of men upon all his wars or else of a Milice which was call'd Les gens d' ordonnance who served on foot and were not unlike our Train-bands the use or at least stile whereof was renewed in Flanders upon the last VVar with France in 1667 when the Count Egmont was made by the Governour General de gens d' ordonnance These Forces were defrayed by the Cities or Countreys as the others were raised by the Lords when occasion required and all were licensed immediately when it was past so that they were of little charge to the Prince His wars were but with other Princes of his own size or Competitors to his Principality or sometimes with the Mutineys of his great Towns Short though violent and decided by one Battel or Siege unless they fell into the quarrels between England and France and then they were engaged but in the skirts of the VVar the gross of it being waged between the two Kings and these smaller Princes made use of for the credit of Alliance or sometimes the commodiousness of a Diversion rather than for any great weight they made in the main of the Affair The most frequent VVars of the Counts of Holland were with the Frisons a part of the old Saxons and the fiercest battels of some of the Counts of Flanders were with the Normans who past that way into France and were the last of those Nations that have infested the more Southern parts of Europe I have sometimes thought how it should have come to pass that the infinite swarm of that vast Northern-Hive which so often shook the world like a great Tempest and overflowed it like a great Torrent changing Names and Customs and Government and Language and the very face of Nature wherever they seated themselves which upon record of story under the name of Gauls pierced into Greece and Italy sacking Rome and besieging the Capitol in Camillus his time under that of the Cimbers marcht through France to the very confines of
taking on him the Government some new protection was necessary to this Infant-State that had not legs to support it against such a storm as was threatned upon the return of the Spanish and Italian Forces to make the Body of a formidable Army which the Duke of Parma was framing in Namur and Luxenburgh Since the Conference of Bayonne between the Queen-Mother of France and her Daughter Queen of Spain Those two Crowns had continued in the Reign of Francis and Charles to assist one another in the common Design there agreed on of prosecuting with violence those they called the Hereticks in both their Dominions The Peace held constant if not kind between England and Spain so as King Philip had no Wars upon his hands in Christendom during these Commotions in the Low-Countreys And the boldness of the Confederates in their first Revolt and Union seemed greater at such a time than the success of their Resistances afterwards when so many occasions fell in to weaken and divert the Forces of the Spanish Monarchy For Henry the Third coming to the Crown of France and at first only fetter'd and control'd by the Faction of the Guises but afterwards engaged in an open War which They had raised against him upon pretext of preserving the Catholique Religion and in a conjunction of Councels with Spain was forced into better measures with the Hugonots of his Kingdom and fell into ill intelligence with Philip the Second so as Queen Elizabeth having declined to undertake openly the protection of the Low-Countrey Provinces It was by the concurring-resolution of the States and the consent of the French Court devolved upon the Duke of Alencon Brother to Henry the Third But this Prince entered Antwerp with an ill presage to the Flemings by an attempt which a Biscainer made the same day upon the Prince of Orange's Life shooting him though not mortally in the head and He continued his short Government with such mutual distasts between the French and the Flemings the Heat and Violence of one Nation agreeing ill with the Customs and Liberties of the other that the Duke attempting to make himself absolute Master of the City of Antwerp by force was driven out of the Town and thereupon retired out of the Countrey with extream resentment of the Flemings and indignation of the French so as the Prince of Orange being not long after assasin'd at Delph and the Duke of Parma encreasing daily in Reputation and in Force and the Malecontent Party falling back apace to his obedience an end was presaged by most men to the Affairs of the Confederates But the Root was deeper and not so easily shaken For the United Provinces after the unhappy Transactions with the French under the Duke of Alencon reassumed their Union in 583 binding themselves in case by fury of the War any point of it had not been observed To endeavour from that time to see it effected In case any doubt had happened to see it clear'd And any Difficulties composed And in regard the Article concerning Religion had been so fram'd in the Union because in all the other Provinces besides Holland and Zealand The Romish Religion was then used but now the Evangelical It was agreed by all the Provinces of the Union That from this time in them all the Evangelical Reformed Religion should alone be openly preached and exercised They were so far from being broken in their Designs by the Prince of Orange's death That they did all the honour that could be to his Memory substituted Prince Maurice his Son though but Sixteen years old in all his Honours and Commands and obstinately refused all Overtures that were made them of Peace resolving upon all the most desperate Actions and Sufferings rather than return under the Spanish Obedience But these Spirits were fed and heighthen'd in a great degree by the hopes and countenance given them about this time from England for Queen Elizabeth and Philip the Second though they still preserved the Name of Peace yet had worn out in a manner the Effects as well as the Dispositions of it whilst the Spaniard fomented and assisted the Insurrections of the Irish and Queen Elizabeth the new Commonwealth in the Low-Countreys Though neither directly yet by Countenance Money voluntary Troops and ways that were equally felt on both sides and equally understood King Philip had lately encreased the greatness of his Empire by the Inheritance or Invasion of the Kingdoms of Portugal upon King Sebastian's loss in Africa But I know not whether he had encreast his Power by the accession of a Kingdom with disputed Title and a discontented People who could neither be used like good Subjects and governed without Armies nor like a Conquered Nation and so made to bear the charge of their forced obedience But this addition of Empire with the vast Treasure flowing every year out of the Indies had without question raised King Philip's Ambition to vaster designs which made him embrace at once the protection of the League in France against Henry the Third and Fourth and the Donation made him of Ireland by the Pope and so embarque himself in a War with both those Crowns while He was bearded with the open Arms and Defiance of his own Subjects in the Low-Countreys But 't is hard to be imagined how far the Spirit of one Great man goes in the Fortunes of any Army or State The Duke of Parma coming to the Government without any footing in more than two of the smallest Provinces collecting an Army from Spain Italy Germany and the broken Troops of the Countrey left him by Don John having all the other Provinces confederated against him and both England and France beginning to take open part in their defence yet by force of his own Valour Conduct and the Discipline of his Army with the dis-interessed and generous Qualities of his mind winning equally upon the Hearts and Arms of the Revolted Countreys and piercing through the Provinces with an uninterrupted course of Successes and the recovery of the most important Towns in Flanders At last by the taking of Anwerp and Groningue reduced the Affairs of the Union to so extream distress that being grown destitute of all hopes and succours from France then deep engaged in their own Civil Wars They threw themselves wholly at the feet of Queen Elizabeth imploring her Protection and offering her the Soveraignty of their Countrey The Queen refused the Dominion but enter'd into Articles with their Deputies in 585 obliging her self to very great Supplies of Men and of Moneys lent them upon the security of the Briel Flussing and Ramekins which were performed and Sir John Norrice sent over to command her Forces and afterwards in 87 upon the War broken out with Spain and the mighty threats of the Spanish Armada she sent over yet greater Forces under the Earl of Leicester whom the States admitted and swore obedience to him as Governour of their United Provinces But this Government lasted not long distastes
Italy defended by Marius under that of Huns or Lombards Visigoths Goths and Vandals conquered the whole Forces of the Roman Empire sackt Rome thrice in a small compass of years seated their Kingdoms in Spain and Africk as well as Lombardy and under that of Danes or Normans possest themselves of England a great part of France and even of Naples and Sicily How I say these Nations which seemed to spawn in every Age and at some intervals of time discharged their own native Countreys of so vast Numbers and with such terror to the world should about seven or eight hundred years ago leave off the use of these furious expeditions as if on a sudden they should have grown barren or tame or better contented with their own ill Climates But I suppose we owe this benefit wholly to the growth and progress of Christianity in the North by which early and undistinguisht Copulation or multitude of VVives were either restrained or abrogated By the same means Learning and Civility got footing among them in some degree and enclosed certain Circuits of those vast Regions by the distinctions and bounds of Kingdoms Principalities or Commonalties Men began to leave their wilder lives spent without other cares or pleasures than of Food or of Lust and betook themselves to the ease and entertainment of Societies VVith Order and Labour Riches began and Trade followed and these made way for Luxury and that for many Diseases or ill habits of body which unknown to the former and simpler Ages began to shorten and weaken both Life and Procreation Besides the divisions and circles of Dominion occasioned VVars between the several Nations though of one Faith and those of the Poles Hungarians and Muscovites with the Turks or Tartars made greater slaughters and by these Accidents I suppose the Numbers of those fertil Broods have been lessened and their Limits in a measure confined and we have had thereby for so long together in these parts of the world the honour and liberty of drawing our own blood upon the quarrels of Humour or Avarice Ambition or Pride without the assistance or need of any Barbarons Nations to destroy us But to end this disgression and return to the Low-Countreys where the Government lasted in the form and manner described though in several Principalities till Philip of Burgundy in whom all the Seventeen Provinces came to be united By this great extent of a populous Countrey and the mighty growth of Trade in Bruges Gant and Antwerp attributed by Comines to the goodness of the Princes and ease and safety of the people both Philip and his Son Charles the Hardy found themselves a Match for France then much weakned as well by the late wars of England as the Factions of their Princes And in the wars with France was the House of Burgundy under Charles and Maximilian of Austria who married his Daughter and Heir and afterwards under Charles the Fifth their Grandchild almost constantly engaged the course successes and revolutions whereof are commonly known Philip of Burgundy who began them was a good and wise Prince lov'd by his Subjects and esteemed by his Enemies and took his measures so well that upon the declining of the English Greatness abroad by their Dissentions at home he ended his quarrels in France by a Peace with Safety and Honour So that he took no pretence from his Greatness or his VVars to change any thing in the Forms of his Government But Charles the Hardy engaged more rashly against France and the Switzers began to ask greater and frequent Contributions of his Subjects which gain'd at first by the credit of his Father's Government and his own great Designs but spent in an unfortunate VVar made his people discontented and him disesteemed till he ended an unhappy life by an untimely death in the Battel of Nancy In the time of Maximilian several German-troops were brought down into Flanders for their defence against France and in that of Charles the Fifth much greater Forces of Spaniards and Italians upon the same occasion a thing unknown to the Low-Countrey-men in the time of their former Princes But through the whole course of this Emperor's Reign who was commonly on the fortunate hand his Greatness and Fame encreasing together either diverted or suppressed any discontents of his Subjects upon the encrease of their Payments or the grievance of so many Forreign Troops among them Besides Charles was of a gentle and a generous nature and being born in the Low-Countreys was naturally kind and easie to that people whose Customs and Language he always used when he was among them and employed all their great men in the Charges of his Court his Government or his Armies through the several parts of his vast Dominions so that upon the last great Action of his life which was the resignation of his Crowns to his Son and Brother He left to Philip the Second the Seventeen Provinces in a condition as Peaceable and as Loyal as either Prince or Subjects could desire Philip the Second coming to the possession of so many and great Dominions about the year 1556 after some trial of good and ill fortune in the War with France which was left him by his Father like an encumbrance upon a great Estate restored by the Peace of Cambrey not only the quiet of his own Countreys but in a manner of all Christendom which was in some degree or other engaged in the quarrel of these Princes After this he resolved to return into Spain and leave the Low-Countreys under a subordinate Government which had been till Charles the Fifth's time the constant Seat of their Princes and shar'd the Presence of that great Emperor with the rest of his Dominions But Philip a Spaniard born receiving from the Climate or Education of that Countrey the Severeness and Gravity of the Nation which the Flemings called Reservedness and Pride Conferring the Offices of his House and the Honour of his Council and Confidence upon Spaniards and thereby introducing their Customs Habits and Language into the Court of Flanders Continuing after the peace those Spanish and Italian Forces and the demand of Supplies from the States which the War had made necessary and the easier supported He soon left off being lov'd and began to be feared by the Inhabitants of those Provinces But Philip the Second thought it not agreeing with the Pomp and Greatness of the House of Austria already at the head of so mighty Dominions nor with his Designs of a yet greater Empire to consider the Discontents or Grievances of so small a Countrey nor to be limited by their ancient Forms of Government And therefore at his departure for Spain and substitution of his natural Sister the Dutchess of Parma for Governess of the Low-Countreys assisted by the Ministry of Granvell He left her instructed to continue the Forreign Troops and the demand of money from the States for their support which was now by a long course of War grown customary
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
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
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