Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/92

80 80 HOLLAND [HISTORY. than twenty years. It was with a view to the security of this aristocratic government that a great assembly of the Pro vinces was held in 1651, and established that form of rule which Sir William Temple has so well described in his Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands. Consti- There were four chief elements in that federation : the tution terms of the Union of Utrecht (1579); the claims and position of the house of Orange; the sovereignty, within its own borders, of each province; and lastly, the liberties vinces. and power of the cities. In the last two the lead was taken by Holland : Holland was the chief province, and Amsterdam, its capital, the chief city of the union. And these two parts of the federation were at one also in their resistance to the house of Orange, of which the chief strength lay in Zealand. The union was governed, in theory at least, by the States General of the provinces, which met at the Hague, and consisted of a fluctuating number of de puties (sometimes as many as 800), and was supplemented by a permanent council of state, a kind of cabinet composed of twelve deputies from the provinces, and a chamber of accounts. Besides this body each province had its own The estates, and each great city its own senate. Thus Amster- town- &amp;lt;J am W as ruled by a senate of thirty-six burghers, who kept govern- or( j er) administered justice, raised local taxes. The office of senator was for life, originally by election of the whole body of freemen, but from the 16th century by cooptation, so that the government of the city became a close oligarchy. The chief towns followed Amsterdam in this direction. The senate elected the deputies of the city to the states of Holland. Com- The commercial prosperity of the Provinces went on mercial advancing throughout the 17th century; each town had pro &quot; its own work. Flushing received the West India trade; Mid delburg was entrepot for French wines; Terveer was the Scottish and Dort the English staple; Leyden manu factured; Haarlem made linen and mixed stuffs, and grew tulips for profit and pastime; Delft was known for beer and hardware; Zaandam built ships; Enkhuizen caught and cured herrings; Friesland had the Greenland trade; and lastly Amsterdam, recognized chief of Dutch cities, had the East India trade, with that of Spain and the Mediterranean: their whole carrying business reached from tne Gulf of Bothnia to the farthest Indies. Their sea faring enterprise received an early scientific impulse from the labours of Coignet and G. Mercator. All questions as to the nature and development of wealth were still in their infancy : it was believed that all depended on balances of actual bullion; and the Spaniards were envied because their ships brought over masses of gold and silver. The &quot;balance of trade,&quot; the establishment of banks at home and colonies abroad, especially mining colonies, a huge carrying trade, the making of goods to be sold for cash only, the discouragement of all imports, and the support of all monopolies these things, chief elements of what is called the &quot; isolation theory of trade,&quot; guided the politics of the Nth century, gave Holland vast temporary wealth, discouraged her power of production, and eventually have left her impotent among the nations. The At first William the Silent had been governor of the governor Provinces, nominally at least under the king of Spain; States an( ^ * n tue recons t ruc tion he secured his own rights, while General. the sovereign power was transferred to the States General. They took the right of making peace and war, of conclud ing alliances, of taxing and coining. The governor had all military commands, had power to pardon, and controlled the civil appointments; he represented the dignity of the state, with a court, and guards, and envoys from other lands. Each province had its own stadtholder, an office in name at least derived from the Spanish times; each town had its own pensionary or chief minister. But after the death of William II., the office of stadtholder of Holland was for a time suspended; there was no captain-general or admiral; and the grand pensionary of Holland, first minister of the state, became virtual president of the republic, as we see in the cases of John De Witt and Heinsius. When the English envoys returned to tell their masters, the Commonwealth, of their failure at the Hague, parlia ment at once replied by passing the memorable Navigation Act of 1651, which aimed at destroying the carrying-trade of the Provinces. The struggle for the lordship of the seas War which ensued, and with which the names of Tromp and witn Ruyter, Blake, and Monk are so splendidly associated, was ^ngM waged with equal bravery and nearly equal success on both sides, until 1654, when peace was made by the Amsterdam burgher-party. By the terms of the treaty with Cromwell the Orange-Nassau family was altogether to be excluded from the stadtholderate of Holland, the other Provinces reserving their independence, and the Dutch populace also much disliking the peace. England preserved the honour of her flag, while Holland was seen to be a worthy and equal rival for the command of the sea. Hostilities between the Dutch and Portuguese respecting War their rights in Brazil followed, in which, after each side ^ ith had done much damage to the other, peace was also made; Ponu and Holland in 1658 interfered to save the Danes from Charles Gustavus of Sweden. In 1659 a treaty of peace was made between France, England, and the United Provinces, with a view to the settlement of the Dano-Swedish question, which ended in securing a northern peace in 1660, and in keeping the Baltic waters open for Dutch trade. Since the abolition of the stadtholderate after William s deathin 1650, the centre of authority had lain in the hands of John de John Witt, the sagacious leader of the anti-Orange or Amsterdam ^ Jtt&amp;gt; burgher-party; and he guided the foreign affairs of the provinces in such a way as to secure the fair development of their commerce on every side. The momentous year 1660 was almost as critical for Wai- Holland as for any state of Europe. Charles, in England. wita having re-enacted the Navigation Act, war again broke I!ga out in 1665, and the duke of York took the command of the English fleet. At the beginning of June he met the Dutch admiral Opdam, and, after a close-fought battle off Lowestoft, the English were completely victorious. But so bad was the condition of the home Government in Eng land that in the following year the Dutch had by far the stronger fleet at sea, and for a time held their own in the Channel. The four-days battle (June 1-4) between Prince Rupert and Mouk on the one side and Iluyter on the other ended in an uncertain victory for the Dutch; but on July 25th they were decidedly defeated off the North Foreland, and driven back to their own shores with immense loss. The English were now masters of the sea; but both parties needed peace, and negotiations began at Breda. In the course of these Ruyter suddenly sailed up the Thames nearly to Gravesend, and struck terror into the very heart of London, which thus became all the more eager for a settlement. In July 1667 a treaty between England and Holland was signed at Breda; and in the following year Sir William Temple accomplished the triple alliance of England, Holland, and Sweden, Triple against the aggressive views of Louis XIV., a hollow affair, auian( and pernicious in its results to those who made it. It made Louis XIV. determine to take vengeance on the United Provinces and on the De Witts; it led at once to the humiliation of England by the treaty of Dover (1670), . to the overthrow of the Amsterdam party, and to the miserable end of the De Witts; and it eventually raised the prince of Orange to supreme authority in the United Provinces.