Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/626

614 treatment of De Witt and Olden Barneveld, and the bloody faction fights of the Hooks and the Kabbeljaws, of the Calvinists and the Arminians. Overtax them, oppress them, proscribe their religion, impress their seamen and cripple their commerce — they felt they were being robbed of all that was worth the living for; their phlegmatic natures were slowly wrought up to a white heat, and were not to be cooled down again except by the satisfaction of victory and of vengeance fully gratified. Hence, as we have said, their war of independence with Philip and his captains was but a natural episode in the national history; nor, in saying so, do we forget the acts of almost unparalled heroism which have been made so familiar in the pages of Motley, that it is quite superfluous to do more than advert to them.

But if the progress of scientific inventions has assisted the Dutch in some essential respects, in other ways it has handicapped them more heavily than before in the hot race with eager rivals. When the fleets of their Indian Company used to spend years on the Indian voyage, it mattered little whether they sailed from the Thames or the Ij: and it they chanced to be becalmed for weeks off the Texel, it scarcely troubled the worthy burghers who freighted them. When tedious coasting voyages were made under sail to the European ports, it was of comparatively little consequence that time should be wasted off the bar of the Maas or in tacking about among the shallows of the Zuyder Zee. The transferring the cargoes of those deep-laden ships that could not clear the bar of the Pampas had been submitted to as an inevitable necessity, or else the kameeds or lighters filled with water were secured and sunk on either side of them; then the water was pumped out, and as the emptied lighters rose, their buoyancy lifted the vessel between them. But the growth of the mercantile marine in other countries, improvements in shipbuilding, and, above all, the introduction of steam-power, changed all that. When vessels made swift voyages, sometimes several voyages in the year, time became of the utmost importance to those who were competing in the markets of the world. Could we imagine Amsterdam colonized by Spaniards or Italians, we may be sure it would have lost its trade as Venice did, and pined away in gradual decay, like one of those "dead cities" in northern Holland which we propose to visit with M. Havard by-and-by. Of all the great European seaports, no one perhaps is less favourably situated. But the Dutchmen, habituated to get the better of difficulties, were the last people in the world to resign themselves to commercial extinction and straitened circumstances. Frugal as they are by habit and temperament, they have seldom come to shipwreck through penny wisdom. They began by cutting the great ship-canal which runs parallel to the two seas, from the Ij to the Helder, through the whole length of the province of North Holland. For a time that canal satisfied the expectations of its projectors, and paid the country handsomely though indirectly. But in time it became clear that it answered its purposes but imperfectly. It began to fill up in spite of dredging, and ships sitting deep in the water had to lighten themselves of part of their cargoes at the northern terminus of Nieuwe Diep. Then the prevalent winds which set from the west blew at right angles to the course of the canal. Before it had been decided on originally, an alternative scheme had been broached and rejected, on account of its greater costliness. Subsequently the rejected scheme was brought forward again, rapidly assumed a definite shape, and has resulted in the construction of the great North-Sea Canal.

The estimated expense was as serious a consideration as the engineering difficulties. But it was felt that the commercial existence of Amsterdam was at stake, and that the fate of the city depended on the success of the undertaking. Already the community of merchant princes and cosmopolitan bankers threatened to degenerate into so many speculators and stock-jobbers. So the capital of £2,600,000 was found, the State and the city coming to the assistance of the promoters, and the canal was cut. We had the good fortune to make one of the party when the board of directors made the trial trip from sea to sea; and although knowing little of technical engeneering, we shall never forget the impression made on us by the ingenuity with which difficulties had been surmounted, and the stupendous character of the works at either end. It was a stormy day in the autumn; a formidable surf was rolling in from the North Sea; the Zuyder Zee was heaving in lines of crested breakers; even the inland waters through which the canal is carried were troubled, and dyed a lugubrious grey with the wash of the sand thrown up from the bottom. There was no difficulty in realizing the strain that would be put upon the works in the course of a rough winter. 