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312 of the state in a respectable condition. Scarcely any thing tended more to exasperate the people against the old government than the neglect into which it had permitted the navy of the republic to fall. One of the principal accusations against the stadtholder was, that, listening to the suggestions of England, which dreaded to see the marine of Holland in a prosperous condition, the wants of the navy were not only unattended to, but every artifice was used further to enfeeble it. The measures adopted by the provisional government relative to the navy, were the most popular steps that could have been pursued. The enthusiasm of the people was kept alive by constant allusions to the bright annals of the republic, to the days of Ruyter, Tromp, and Van Brakel, when the fleets of Holland proudly insulted the coasts of England, or, audaciously forcing the narrow pass of the Baltic, gave laws to the north.