and suspition soon breaking out between Leicester and the States Partly from the jealousie of his affecting an Absolute Dominion and Arbitrary disposal of all Offices But chiefly of the Queen's Intentions to make a Peace with Spain And the easie loss of some of their Towns by Governours placed in them by the Earl of Leicester encreased their discontents Notwithstanding this ill intercourse the Queen re-assures them in both those points disapproves some of Leicester's proceedings receives franc and hearty assistances from them in her Naval Preparations against the Spaniards and at length upon the disorders encreasing between the Earl of Leicester and the States commands him to resign his Government and release the States of the Oath they had taken to obey him And after all this had past the Queen easily sacrificing all particular resentments to the Interest of her Crown continued her Favour Protection and Assistances to the States during the whole course of Her Reign which were return'd with the greatest deference and veneration to her Person that was ever paid by them to any Forreign Prince and continues still to her Name in the remembrance and frequently in the mouths of all sorts of people among them After Leicester's departure Prince Maurice was by the consent of the Union chosen their Governour but with a reservation to Queen Elizabeth and enter'd that Command with the hopes which he made good in the execution of it for many years proving the greatest Captain of his Age famous particularly in the discipline and ordonance of his Armies and the ways of Fortification by him first invented or perfected and since his time imitated by all But the great breath that was given the States in the heat of their Affairs was by the sharp Wars made by Queen Elizabeth upon the Spaniards at Sea in the Indies and the Expeditions of Lisbon and Cadiz and by the declining-affairs of the League in France for whose support Philip the Second was so passionately engaged that twice he commanded the Duke of Parma to interrupt the course of his Victories in the Low-Countreys and march into France for the relief of Roan and Paris Which much augmented the Renown of this great Captain but as much impaired the state of the Spanish Affairs in Flanders For in the Duke of Parma's absence Prince Maurice took in all the places held by the Spaniard on t'other side the Rhine which gave them entrance into the United Provinces The succession of Henry the Fourth to the Crown of France gave a mighty blow to the Designs of King Philip and much greater The general obedience and acknowledgment of him upon his change of Religion With this King the States began to enter a confidence and kindness and the more by that which interceded between Him and the Queen of England who had all their dependance during her life But after her death King Henry grew to have greater credit than ever in the United Provinces though upon the decay of the Spanish Power under the Ascendent of this King the States fell into very early jealousies of his growing too great and too near them in Flanders With the Duke of Parma died all the Discipline and with that all the Fortunes of the Spanish Arms in Flanders The frequent Mutinies of their Soldiers dangerous in effect and in example were more talkt of than any other of their actions in the short Government of Manstsield Ernest and Fuentes Till the old Discipline of their Armies began to revive and their Fortune a little to respire under the new Government of Cardinal Albert who came into Flanders both Governour and Prince of the Low-Countreys in the head of a mighty Army drawn out of Germany and Italy to try the last effort of the Spanish Power either in a prosperous War or at least in making way for a necessary Peace But the choice of the Arch-Duke and this new Authority had a deeper root and design than at first appear'd For that mighty King Philip the Second born to so vast Possessions and to so much vaster Desires after a long dream of raising his head into the Clouds found it now ready to lye down in the dust His Body broken with age and infirmities his Mind with cares and distemper'd thoughts and the Royal servitude of a sollicitous life He began to see in the glass of Time and Experience the true shapes of all human Greatness and Designs And finding to what Airy Figures he had hitherto sacrificed his Health and Ease and the Good of his Life He now turn'd his thoughts wholly to rest and quiet which he had never yet allowed either the World or Himself His Designs upon England and his Invincible Armada had ended in smoak Those upon France in Events the most contrary to what he had proposed And instead of mastering the Liberties and breaking the Stomach of his Low-Countrey Subjects He had lost Seven of his Provinces and held the rest by the tenure of a War that cost him more than they were worth He had made lately a Peace with England and desir'd it with France and though he scorn'd it with his revolted Subjects in his own Name yet he wisht it in another's and was unwilling to entail a quarrel upon his Son which had crost his Fortunes and busied his thoughts all the course of his Reign He therefore resolved to commit these two Designs to the management of Arch-Duke Albert with the stile of Governour and Prince of the Low-Countreys to the end that if he could reduce the Provinces to their old subjection He should govern them as Spanish Dominions If that was once more in vain attempted He should by a Marriage with Clara Isabella Eugenia King Philip's beloved Daughter receive those Provinces as a Dowry and become the Prince of them with a condition only of their returning to Spain in case of Isabella's dying without Issue King Philip believed that the presence of a natural Prince among his Subjects That the Birth and Customs of Arch-Duke Albert being a German The generous and obliging dispositions of Isabella might gain further upon this stubborn people than all the Force and Rigor of his former Counsels And at the worst That they might make a Peace if they could not a War and without interessing the Honour and Greatness of the Spanish Crown In pursuit of this determination like a wise King while he intended nothing but Peace He made Preparations as if he design'd nothing but War knowing that his own desires of Peace would signifie nothing unless he could force his Enemies to desire it too He therefore sent the Arch-Duke into Flanders at the head of such an Army that believing the Peace with France must be the first in order and make way for either the War or Peace afterward in the Low-Countreys He marcht into France and took Amiens the chief City of Picardy and thereby gave such an Alarm to the French Court as they little expected and had never received in the
in uncertain Climates especially if improved by accidents of ill health or ill fortune But this is a Disease too refin'd for this Countrey and People Who are well when they are not ill and pleas'd when they are not troubled are content because they think little of it and seek their happiness in the common Eases and Commodities of Life or the encrease of Riches Not amusing themselves with the more speculative contrivances of Passion or refinements of Pleasure To conclude this Chapter Holland is a Countrey where the Earth is better than the Air and Profit more in request than Honour Where there is more Sense than Wit More good Nature than good Humour And more Wealth than Pleasure Where a man would chuse rather to travel than to live Shall find more things to observe than desire And more persons to esteem than to love But the same Qualities and Dispositions do not value a private man and a State nor make a Conversation agreeable and a Government great Nor is it unlikely that some very great King might make but a very ordinary private Gentleman and some very extraordinary Gentleman might be capable of making but a very mean Prince CHAP. V. Of their RELIGION I Intend not here to speak of Religion at all as a Divine but as a meer Secular man when I observe the occasions that seem to have establisht it in the Forms or with the Liberties wherewith it is now attended in the United Provinces I believe the Reformed Religion was introduced there as well as in England and the many other Countreys where it is profess'd by the operation of Divine Will and Providence And by the same I believe the Roman-Catholique was continued in France Where it seemed by the conspiring of so many Accidents in the beginnings of Charles the Ninth's Reign to be so near a change And whoever doubts this seems to question not only the Will but the Power of God Nor will it at all derogate from the Honour of a Religion to have been planted in a Countrey by Secular means or Civil Revolutions which have long since succeeded to those Miraculous Operations that made way for Christianity in the world 'T is enough that God Almighty infuses belief into the hearts of men or else ordains it to grow out of Religious Enquiries and Instructions And that wherever the generality of a Nation come by these means to be of a belief It is by the force of this concurrence introduced into the Government and becomes the Establisht Religion of That Countrey So was the Reformed Profession introduced into England Scotland Sueden Denmark Holland and many parts of Germany So was the Roman-Catholique restored in France and in Flanders where notwithstanding the great Concussions that were made in the Government by the Hugonots and the Gueuses yet they were never esteemed in either of those Countreys to amount further than the Seventh or Eighth part of the people And whosoever designs the change of Religion in a Countrey or Government by any other means than that of a general conversion of the people or the greatest part of them Designs all the Mischiefs to a Nation that use to usher in or attend the two greatest Distempers of a State Civil War or Tyranny Which are Violence Oppression Cruelty Rapine Intemperance Injustice and in short the miserable Effusion of Human Blood and the Confusion of all Laws Orders and Virtues among men Such Consequences as these I doubt are something more than the disputed Opinions of any man or any particular Assembly of men can be worth Since the great and general End of all Religion next to mens happiness hereafter is their happiness here As appears by the Commandments of God being the best and greatest Moral and Civil as well as Divine Precepts that have been given to a Nation And by the Rewards proposed to the Piety of the Jews throughout the Old Testament which were the Blessings of this life as Health length of Age number of Children Plenty Peace or Victory Now the way to our future happiness has been perpetually disputed throughout the World and must be left at last to the Impressions made upon every man's Belief and Conscience either by natural or supernatural Arguments and Means Which Impressions men may disguise or dissemble but no man can resist For Belief is no more in a man's power than his Stature or his Feature And he that tells me I must change my Opinion for his because 't is the truer and the better without other Arguments that have to me the force of conviction May as well tell me I must change my gray eyes for others like his that are black because these are lovelier or more in esteem He that tells me I must inform my self Has reason if I do it not But if I endeavour it all that I can and perhaps more than he ever did and yet still differ from him And he that it may be is idle will have me study on and inform my self better and so to the end of my life Then I easily understand what he means by informing Which is in short that I must do it till I come to be of his opinion If he that perhaps pursues his Pleasures or Interests as much or more than I do And allows me to have as good sense as he has in all other matters Tells me I should be of his opinion but that Passion or Interest blinds me Unless he can convince me how or where this lies He is but where he was Only pretends to know me better than I do my self who cannot imagine why I should not have as much care of my soul as he has of his A man that tells me my opinions are absurd or ridiculous impertinent or unreasonable because they differ from his seems to intend a Quarrel instead of a Dispute and calls me Fool or Mad-man with a little more circumstance Though perhaps I pass for one as well in my senses as he as pertinent in talk and as prudent in life Yet these are the common Civilities in Religious Argument of sufficient and conceited men Who talk much of Right Reason and mean always their own And make their private imagination the measure of general Truth But such language determines all between us and the Dispute comes to end in three words at last which it might as well have ended in at first That he is in the right and I am in the wrong The other great End of Religion which is our happiness here Has been generally agreed on by all Mankind as appears in the Records of all their Laws as well as all their Religions which come to be establisht by the concurrence of men's Customs and and Opinions though in the latter that concurrence may have been produced by Divine Impressions or Inspirations For all agree in teaching and commanding in planting and improving not only those Moral Virtues which conduce to the felicity and tranquillity of every private man's life But
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
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
derived and held of the Kings of France Besides they had intimations that Henry the Fourth was taken up in great Preparations of War which they doubted would at one time or other fall on that side at least if they were invited by any greater decays of the Spanish Power in Flanders And they knew very well they should lye as much at the mercy of such a Neighbour as France as they had formerly done of such a Master as Spain For the Spanish Power in Flanders was fed by Treasures that came by long and perillous Voyages out of Spain By Troops drawn either from thence or from Italy or Germany with much Casualty and more Expence Their Territory of the Ten Provinces was small and awed by the Neighbourhood and Jealousies both of England and France But if France were once Master of Flanders The Body of that Empire would be so great and so intire so abounding in People and in Riches That whenever they found or made an occasion of invading the United Provinces They had no hopes of preserving themselves by any opposition or diversion And the end of their mighty resistances against Spain was to have no Master and not to change one for another as they should do in this case Therefore the most intelligent among their Civil Ministers thought it safest by a Peace to give breath to the Arch-Duke's and Spanish Power and by that means to lessen the invitation of the Arms of France into Flanders under so great a King For what was Domestique The Credit and Power of Prince Maurice built at first upon that of his Father but much raised by his own Personal Virtues and Qualities and the success of his Arms Was now grown so high the Prince being Governour or Stadtholder of Four of the Provinces and two of his Cousins of the other Three that several of the States headed by Barnevelt Pensioner of Holland and a man of great Abilities and Authority among them became jealous of the Prince's Power and pretended to fear the growth of it to an Absolute Dominion They knew it would encrease by the continuance of a War which was wholly managed by the Prince and thought that in a Peace it would diminish and give way to the Authority of Civil Power Which disposed this whole Party to desire the Treaty and to advance the progress and issue of it by all their assistances And these different humours stirring in the heart of the States with almost equal strength and vigour The Negotiation of a Peace came to be ended after long debates and infinite endeavours Breaking in appearance upon the points of Religion and the Indian Trade But yet came to knit again and conclude in a Truce of Twelve years dated in the year 1609 whereof the most essential points were The Declaration of treating with them as Free Provinces The Cessation of all Acts of Hostility on both sides during the Truce The enjoyment for that space of all that each party possest at the time of the Treaty That no new Fortification should be raised on either side And that free Commerce should be restored on all parts in the same manner as it was before the Wars And thus the State of the United Provinces came to be acknowledged as a Free Commonwealth by their ancient Master having before been treated so by most of the Kings and Princes of Europe in frequent Ambassies and Negotiations Among which a particular preference was given to the English Crown whose Ambassador had Session and Vote in their Council of State by Agreement with Queen Elizabeth and in acknowledgment of those great Assistances which gave life to their State when it was upon the point of expiring Though the Dutch pretend that Priviledg was given to the Ambassador by virtue of the possession This Crown had of the Briel Flussingue and Ramekins and that it was to cease upon the restitution of those Towns and repayment of those Sums lent by the Queen In the very time of treating this Truce a League was concluded between Henry the Fourth of France and the States for preserving the Peace if it came to be concluded or in case of its failing for assistance of one another With Ten thousand men on the Kings part and Five thousand on the States Nor did that King make any difficulty of continuing the Two Regiments of Foot and Two hundred Horse in the States Service at his own charge after the Truce which he had maintained for several years before it Omitting no provisions that might tye that State to his interests and make him at present Arbiter of the Peace and for the future of the War if the Truce should come to be broken or to expire of it self By what has been related it will easily appear That no State was ever born with stronger throws or nurst up with harder fare or inur'd to greater labours or dangers in the whole course of its youth which are circumstances that usually make strong and healthy bodies And so this has proved having never had more than one Disease break out in the space of Ninety three years which may be accounted the Age of this State reckoning from the Union of Utrecht enter'd by the Provinces in 1579 But this Disease like those of the Seed or Conception in a natural body Though it first appear'd in Barnevelt's time breaking out upon the Negotiations with Spain and seemed to end with his death who was beheaded not many years after yet has it ever since continued lurking in the veins of this State and appearing upon all Revolutions that seem to favour the predominancy of the one or other Humour in the Body And under the Names of the Prince of Orange's and the Arminian Party has ever made the weak side of this State and whenever their period comes will prove the occasion of their Fall The ground of this Name of Arminian was That whilst Barnevelt's Party accused those of the Prince of Orange's as being careless of their Liberties So dearly bought as devoted to the House of Orange and disposed to the admission of an Absolute Principality and in order thereunto as promoters of a perpetual War with Spain So those of the Princes Party accused the others as leaning still and looking kindly upon their old Servitude and relishing the Spaniard both in their Politicks by so eagerly affecting a Peace with that Crown and in their Religion by being generally Arminians which was esteemed the middle part between the Calvinist and the Roman Religion And besides these mutual Reproaches the two Parties have ever valued themselves upon the asserting One of the true and purer Reformed Religion and the other of the true and freer Liberties of the State The Fortunes of this Commonwealth that have happened in their Wars or Negotiations since the Truce with Spain and what Circumstances or Accidents both abroad and at home serv'd to cultivate their mighty growth and conspired to the Greatness wherein they appear'd to the World in the
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
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
from Sense Of which there are so many Testimonies recorded by the Martyrdoms Penances or Conscientious Restraints and Severities suffered by infinite Persons in all sorts of Religion Besides this Profession seemed still a retainer of the Spanish Government which was then the great Patron of it in the world Yet such was the care of this State to give all men ease in this point who askt no more than to serve God and save their own souls in their own Way and Forms That what was not provided for by the Constitutions of their Government was so in a very great degree by the connivence of their Officers Who upon certain constant Payments from every Family suffer the exercise of the Roman-Catholique Religion in their several Jurisdictions as free and easie though not so cheap and so avowed as the rest This I suppose has been the reason that though those of this Profession are very numerous in the Countrey among the Peasants and considerable in the Cities Yet they seem to be a found piece of the State and fast jointed in with the rest And have neither given any disturbance to the Government nor exprest any inclinations to a change or to any Forreign Power Either upon the former Wars with Spain or the latter Invasions of the Bishop of Munster Of all other Religions every man enjoys the free exercise in his own Chamber or his own House unquestioned and unespied And if the followers of any Sect grow so numerous in any place that they affect a publique Congregation and are content to purchase a place of Assembly to bear the charge of a Pastor or Teacher and to pay for this Liberty to the Publique They go and propose their desire to the Magistrates of the place where they reside Who inform themselves of their Opinions and manners of Worship and if they find nothing in either destructive to Civil Society or prejudicial to the Constitutions of their State And content themselves with the price that is offer'd for the purchase of this Liberty They easily allow it But with the condition That one or more Commissioners shall be appointed who shall have free admission at all their meetings shall be both the Observers and Witnesses of all that is acted or preached among them and whose testimony shall be received concerning any thing that passes there to the prejudice of the State In which case the Laws and Executions are as severe as against any Civil Crimes Thus the Jews have their allowed Synagogues in Amsterdam and Rotterdam And in the first almost all Sects that are known among Christians have their publique Meeting-places and some whose Names are almost worn out in all other parts as the Brownists Familists and others The Arminians though they make a great Name among them by being rather the distinction of a Party in the State than a Sect in the Church Yet are in comparison of others but few in number Though considerable by the persons who are of the better quality the more learned and intelligent men and many of them in the Government The Anabaptists are just the contrary very numerous but in the lower ranks of people Mechanicks and Sea-men and abound chiefly in North-Holland The Calvinists make the body of the people and are possessed of all the publique Churches in the Dominions of the State as well as of the only Ministers or Pastors who are maintained by the Publique But these have neither Lands nor Tythes nor any authorized Contributions from the people but certain Salaries from the State upon whom they wholly depend And though they are often very bold in taxing and preaching publiquely against the Vices and sometimes the innocent Entertainments of persons most considerable in the Government as well as of the Vulgar yet they are never heard to censure or controul the publique Actions or Resolutions of the State They are in general throughout the Countrey passionate Friends to the Interests of the House of Orange And during the intermission of that Authority found ways of expressing their affections to the Person and Fortunes of this Prince without offending the State as it was then constituted They are fierce Enemies of the Arminian Party whose Principles were thought to lead them in Barnevelt's time towards a conjunction or at least compliance with the Spanish Religion and Government Both which the House of Orange in the whole course of the War endeavoured to make irreconcilable with those of the State It is hardly to be imagined how all the violence and sharpness which accompanies the differences of Religion in other Countreys seems to be appeased or softned here by the general freedom which all men enjoy either by allowance or connivence Nor how Faction and Ambition are thereby disabled to colour their Interessed and Seditious Designs with the pretences of Religion Which has cost the Christian World so much blood for these last Hundred and fifty years No man can here complain of pressure in his Conscience Of being forced to any publique profession of his private Faith Of being restrained from his own manner of worship in his House Or obliged to any other abroad And whoever asks more in point of Religion without the undisputed evidence of a particular Mission from Heaven may be justly suspected not to ask for God's sake but for his own since pretending to Soveraignty instead of Liberty in Opinion is indeed pretending the same in Authority too Which consists chiefly in Opinion And what Man or Party soever can gain the common and firm belief of being most immediately inspired instructed or favoured of God Will easily obtain the prerogative of being most honour'd and obey'd by men But in this Commonwealth no man having any reason to complain of oppression in Conscience and no man having hopes by advancing his Religion to form a Party or break in upon the State The differences in Opinion make none in Affections and little in Conversation where it serves but for entertainment and variety They argue without interest or anger They differ without enmity or scorn And they agree without confederacy Men live together like Citizens of the World associated by the common ties of Humanity and by the bonds of Peace Under the impartial protection of indifferent Laws With equal encouragement of all Art and Industry and equal freedom of Speculation and Enquiry All men enjoying their imaginary excellencies and acquisitions of knowledg with as much safety as their more real possessions and improvements of Fortune The power of Religion among them where it is lies in every man's heart The appearance of it is but like a piece of Humanity by which every one falls most into the company or conversation of those whose Customs and Humours whose Talk and Disposition they like best And as in other places 't is in every man's choice With whom he will eat or lodg with whom go to Market or to Court So it seems to be here with whom he will pray or go to Church or associate
mutual trust among private men so it cannot grow or thrive to any great degree without a confidence both of publique and private safety and consequently a trust in the Government from an opinion of its Strength Wisdom and Justice Which must be grounded either upon the Personal Virtues and Qualities of a Prince or else upon the Constitutions and Orders of a State It appears to every mans eye who hath travel'd Holland and observed the number and vicinity of their great and populous Towns and Villages with the prodigious improvement of almost every spot of ground in the Countrey And the great multitudes constantly employ'd in their Shipping abroad and their Boats at home That no other known Countrey in the World of the same extent holds any proportion with this in numbers of people And if that be the great foundation of Trade the best account that can be given of theirs will be by considering the Causes and Accidents that have served to force or invite so vast a confluence of people into their Countrey In the first rank may be placed the Civil-Wars Calamities Persecutions Oppressions or Discontents that have been so fatal to most of their Neighbours for some time before as well as since their State began The Persecutions for matter of Religion in Germany under Charles the Fifth in France under Henry the Second and in England under Queen Mary forced great numbers of people out of all those Countreys to shelter themselves in the several Towns of the Seventeen Provinces where the ancient Liberties of the Countrey and Priviledges of the Cities had been inviolate under so long a succession of Princes and gave protection to these oppressed strangers who fill'd their Cities both with People and Trade and raised Antwerp to such a heighth and renown as continued till the Duke of Alva's arrival in the Low-Countreys The fright of this man and the Orders he brought and Armies to execute them began to scatter the Flock of people that for some time had been nested there So as in very few Months above a Hundred thousand Families removed out of the Countrey But when the Seven Provinces united and began to defend themselves with success under the conduct of the Prince of Orange and the countenance of England and France And the Persecutions for Religion began to grow sharp in the Spanish Provinces All the Professors of the Reformed Religion and haters of the Spanish Dominion retir'd into the strong Cities of this Commonwealth and gave the same date to the growth of Trade there and the decay of it at Antwerp The long Civil-Wars at first of France then of Germany and lastly of England serv'd to encrease the swarm in this Countrey not only by such as were persecuted at home but great numbers of peaceable men who came here to seek for quiet in their Lives and safety in their Possessions or Trades Like those Birds that upon the approach of a rough Winter-season leave the Countreys where they were born and bred flye away to some kinder and softer Climate and never return till the Frosts are past and the Winds are laid at home The invitation these people had to fix rather in Holland than in many better Countreys seems to have been at first the great strength of their Towns which by their Maritime scituation and the low flatness of their Countrey can with their Sluces overflow all the ground about them at such distances as to become inaccessible to any Land-Forces And this natural strength has been improv'd especially at Amsterdam by all the Art and Expence that could any ways contribute towards the defence of the place Next was the Constitution of their Government by which neither the States-General nor the Prince have any power to invade any man's Person or Property within the precincts of their Cities Nor could it be fear'd that the Senate of any Town should conspire to any such violence nor if they did could they possibly execute it having no Soldiers in their pay and the Burgers only being employ'd in the defence of their Towns and execution of all Civil Justice among them These Circumstances gave so great a credit to the Bank of Amsterdam And that was another invitation for people to come and lodg here what part of their Money they could transport and knew no way of securing at home Nor did those people only lodg Moneys here who came over into the Countrey but many more who never left their own Though they provided for a retreat or against a storm and thought no place so secure as this nor from whence they might so easily draw their money into any parts of the World Another Circumstance was the general Liberty and Ease not only in point of Conscience but all others that serve to the commodiousness and quiet of life Every man following his own way minding his own business and little enquiring into other mens Which I suppose happen'd by so great a concourse of people of several Nations different Religions and Customs as left nothing strange or new And by the general humour bent all upon Industry whereas Curiosity is only proper to idle men Besides it has ever been the great Principle of their State running through all their Provinces and Cities even with emulation To make their Countrey the common refuge of all miserable men From whose protection hardly any Alliance Treaties or Interests have ever been able to divert or remove them So as during the great dependance this State had upon France in the time of Henry the Fourth All the persons disgraced at that Court or banisht that Countrey made this their common retreat Nor could the State ever be prevail'd with by any instances of the French Ambassadors to refuse them the use and liberty of common life and air under the protection of their Government This firmness in the State has been one of the circumstances that has invited so many unhappy men out of all their Neighbourhood and indeed from most parts of Europe to shelter themselves from the blows of Justice or of Fortune Nor indeed does any Countrey seem so proper to be made use of upon such occasions not only in respect of safety but as a place that holds so constant and easie correspondencies with all parts of the World And whither any man may draw whatever money he has at his disposal in any other place Where neither Riches expose men to danger nor Poverty to contempt But on the contrary where Parsimony is honourable whether it be necessary or no and he that is forced by his Fortune to live low may here alone live in fashion and upon equal terms in appearance abroad with the chiefest of their Ministers and richest of their Merchants Nor is it easily imagin'd how great an effect this Constitution among them may in course of time have had upon the encrease both of their People and their Trade As the two first invitations of people into this Countrey were the strength of their