Page:The study of history in Holland and Belgium (IA studyofhistoryin00frrich).pdf/22

 its Catholic stadhouder that other son of William the Silent, Philip William, whom the Duke of Alba had had brought up at the University of Louvain and who had received a Spanish education. In our day this Dutch diplomacy of the seventeenth century has been realized in its broad outline: Catholic Belgium lives side by side and on the best terms with Protestant Holland, and the two stadhouders, closely united notwithstanding their religious and political disagreements, are the Kings Leopold II and William III. M. Fruin developed his views clearly and cleverly, forcing nothing, making no words, with severe impartiality, even criticising the diplomacy of the United Provinces which Guizot and other contemporary historians have too much exalted at the expense of the French diplomacy, which was under Louis XIV the first in Europe.

The next day I took care not to miss the lecture, in which M. Fruin dealt with the commercial questions that played so great a part in the Dutch policy of that time. For this war of tariffs the professor referred to Clément's work on Colbert, which, although dating back already more than forty years, remains the most solid book upon the subject. Then he himself set forth with a profusion of picturesque details, figures and estimates, the vital importance to Holland of those prohibitive duties with which Colbert and Cromwell loaded the commerce and marine of the United Provinces. The Dutch merchants were not only better fitted out but also more clearsighted than those of the rest of Europe. Proof of this fact is found in the writings of Pierre de la Court, the Dutch precursor of Adam Smith, in the seventeenth century, and in the numerous commercial reports of the times, which are preserved in the archives at The Hague. M. Fruin has studied them with scrupulous care and gave numerous extracts. He commented especially upon the opinions of Jacob Clouck, an Amsterdam merchant, who, in 1657, in a barbarous style, recommended free trade and summed up his views in the quite odern phrase: "Het eenighe interest can Holland is vryheyt in de commercie." Less clearsighted and more selfish were