A tour through Holland

by Sir John Carr

COINS.

No alteration has taken place in the legends of the coins of Holland. Since the revolution there has been a copious silver coinage, but the florin has remained the same for more than a century. The old calendar is adhered to, with the slight alterations rendered necessary by a change in the name and spirit of the government.

The practice of vails-giving still continues in Holland. Previous to my going to dine with some acquaintances which I made at Rotterdam, I was particularly reminded by a friend who knew the habits of the country, not to forget to carry a few florins with me, as the servant who opened the door, upon my quitting the house, would expect either one or two of those pieces. This abominably mean practice existed in England in a higher degree, and still continues in part in the shape of card money.

If I remember correctly, we are indebted to Mr. Hanway the philanthropist, whose life is given in a very entertaining manner by his pupil and protégé, Mr. Pugh, for the abolition of giving vails to servants; previous to which, a gentleman of moderate income could scarcely afford to dine with an opulent and fashionable friend.

In houses of great resort in Holland, servants are in the habits of purchasing their places of their masters free of wages, solely for the douceurs which custom rigidly exacts from the visitor. At one table a friend of mine, a thoughtless Englishman, was reminded of his having forgotten the usage, by having a quantity of soup poured over his new coat by accidental design.

In the streets I was much gratified by seeing the fruit and vegetable sellers: the fruit was abundant, very fresh, and fine, and such as is usually to be found at the same season in England: the vegetables are remarkably excellent, and are submitted to the eye in the cleanest and most attractive manner. The Dutch potatoes are small and uncommonly good; I think they are, if possible, superior to those of Ireland.

The proximity of the houses to the canals enables the Dutch women to indulge to the full extent of their wishes, in scrubbing and mopping their passages and rooms, which they do from the first to the last blush of day; indeed, cleanliness in their houses is carried to a painful excess. All the strong features of an English Saturday evening, viz. mops, pails, scrubbing-brushes, dusters, fullers’ earth, are in active use every hour of the day, in Holland; and a little hand garden-engine is in perpetual requisition, for washing the outside of the windows.

But the aqua-terrene nymphs to whose hands these right useful instruments are committed, appear to be so solicitous of removing every feculent impression of the foot in their white-tiled halls, of giving a brilliant polish to the brass knockers, and of preserving the furniture of the rooms unsullied, that they frequently neglect to purify their own persons; the charms of which are to be often seen mingled with, if not obscured by, the accretions of long neglect and inattention.

Some travellers have extended similar remarks to the higher classes of the female sex, but unquestionably with more spleen than truth.

I had the honour of being acquainted with many Dutch ladies of respectability, and found them to be very neat in their persons, but my first remark too powerfully applies to the lower orders of the sex: they have no leisure to attend to themselves: to them, with a little transposition of the sentiment, may be applied the facetious lines that described a once celebrated opposition financier.

“It is said that his thoughts have been so long directed

To the national debt that his own are neglected.”

I remember while at Amsterdam a servant was very angry because I would not suffer her to wash my bedroom every day. It might be supposed that in a climate which must be naturally very humid, the natives would prefer having dry rooms as long as possible.

Upon some of the canals I saw Rhine boats of extraordinary dimensions; they were principally laden with hardware, and their owners and families resided wholly on board, in a suite of cabins, generally raised upon the deck, which, in point of commodious arrangement, of neatness and comfort, cannot easily be surpassed on shore. Upon the fore and aft part of the deck their ware is exposed to sale, and below are prodigious depots of the same articles. These vessels are frequently six months in their voyage up and down the Rhine, in consequence of their stopping at those cities or towns situated on its banks, where the owners are likely to have a market for their merchandize.

The reader will be surprised to hear that in several shops I saw many prints of our illustrious Nelson, in which the artist, in order to prevent the beholder from doubting that he had lost the sight of one eye in the service of his country, had the optic completely removed from its socket, and left a large frightful hole, for the purpose of illustrating this part of his heroic history.

At an excellent table d’hote, at the Mareschal de Turenne, I had the happiness of meeting several of my countrymen, who were returning to England after a long and most unjust detention at Verdun; from them I learned that specie was abundant in France, and that Napoleon scarcely admitted any paper to be in circulation; that the roads were no longer farmed, but by the aid of a small additional duty on salt, were put into the finest condition, and that no toll whatever was taken in any part of the empire. They said, that in point of restriction, they were not rigidly treated, but that there were no bounds to the rapacity of those appointed to look after them, particular of the gens d’armes.

The collections of paintings in Rotterdam are not numerous, but very select: perhaps no people upon the face of the earth ever displayed a more inveterate and immoveable attachment to every thing of native growth than the Dutch, except the Chinese, who consider improvement as penal innovation, and who confined a native in irons for life, because he ventured to make a boat upon a new construction, by which it sailed faster than any other.

This immoveable adhesion to old customs in the Dutch, is the more singular, as from their commercial character, they have been in constant intercourse with the natives of every quarter of the globe, the various produces of which they have brought into their own canals, but not for adoption, imitation, or, generally speaking, for consumption, but solely for profitable re-sale.

This spirit, or if you like to call it so, this amor patriæ, is strongly evinced in all their collections of paintings: in only one or two private cabinets in Holland are to be found any productions of the Italian and Venetian schools.

The finest private cabinet belongs to M. Vanderpals, a very rich and respectable merchant; it is principally filled by the works of those delightful masters Nicholas Berchem, and Linglebach; of the former I shall give a few striking anecdotes when I reach Haarlem, the place of his nativity; of the latter I shall briefly speak when I describe Frankfort on the Maine, where he was born.

M. Vanderpot, another wealthy merchant, has also a very large and well selected collection of the Dutch and Flemish painters. M. Lockhorst, a gentleman of commercial distinction, has also a fine assortment of pictures of the same school.

The proprietors of these valuable productions are always ready with the greatest politeness to gratify strangers with the sight of them. Amongst other artists, Rotterdam has the honour of giving birth to the Chevalier Vanderwerf, who was born in 1659, and received his first instructions from Picolet, a portrait painter; he afterwards studied under Eglon Vanderneer, under whom he made a rapid improvement: he principally confined himself to historical subjects of a small size. The Elector Palatine conceived a great fondness for him, from accidentally seeing some of his performances in that style; this prince honoured him with every mark of esteem and beneficence. He conferred upon him the honour of knighthood, ennobled his descendants, gave him a chain of gold and a medal, and his portrait set with diamonds of great value, and allowed him a noble pension, besides paying him munificently for his productions; and upon the wife of Vanderwerf presenting him with a picture drawn by herself, their royal patron bestowed upon her husband six thousand florins, and on the lady a magnificent toilette of silver. What a model of munificence and liberal policy for princes! The pictures of this eminent master are very rare, and bear very high prices. He is principally celebrated for the roundness and relief of his figures; his defect lay in a coldness of colouring. Upon his pictures he laboured with unsparing toil, which injured the spirit of his productions.

His brother, Peter Vanderwerf, was born near Rotterdam in 1665, and was the pupil of his brother Adrian. His principal subjects were portraits and conversations, which entitled him to rank as a very able artist, and as a further proof of it, a small picture of his sold, in 1713, for five hundred and fifty guilders; and another, a copy from one of his brother Adrian’s, for eight hundred guilders. I did not hear of any living painter at Rotterdam of very distinguished eminence, a circumstance somewhat singular, when it is considered how many fine artists, though inferior to Vanderwerf, that city has produced.

The perfection to which the Dutch and Flemish schools arrived, proves that great artists may be formed, without the assistance of great galleries. The present low state of the French school demonstrates, that the most magnificent collection ever known, containing the renowned and exalted specimens of art, and opened to the inspection of every one with a becoming spirit of liberality, cannot form good artists. The St. Jerome of Corregio, and the St. Cecilia of Michael Angelo, have created no successful disciple since their arrival at Paris.

At Dort, or Dordreght, a city of great antiquity, about nine miles from Rotterdam, resides a celebrated artist of the name of Varestage, aged about fifty; he is justly celebrated for his candlelight subjects, which are masterly: one of his works, a school by candlelight, and a number of children, is spoken of as truly exquisite. On account of his eyes growing weak, he has altered his manner, and at present confines himself to large figures, portraits, and conversations.

As I was informed there was nothing very attractive at Dort, I did not visit that city: it is however famous for having given birth to several able men. John Gerard Vossius studied there in 1577, and wrote a great number of learned works; he was the father of Issac Vossius, also a man of profound erudition. Our King Charles humourously observed of him, alluding to his credulity and infidelity, “that he would believe any thing but the Bible.”

Adrian Junius was born here in 1511, and was considered to be one of the most profound men of his country, and wrote many learned works. Dr. Johnson observes of Junius, in the preface to his Dictionary, “the votaries of the northern muses will not perhaps easily restrain their indignation, when they find the name of Junius thus degraded by a disadvantageous comparison, (alluding to Skinner); but whatever reverence is due to his diligence, or his attainments, it can be no criminal degree of censoriousness, to charge that etymologist with want of judgment, who can seriously derive dream from drama, because life is a drama, and a drama is a dream.”

It would be an inexpiable offence to pass over the name of Albert Kuyp, or Cuyp, who was born here, son of the well known Jacob Gerritze Kuyp, whose pupil he was, and whom he infinitely surpassed. The former excelled in whatever he attempted to represent; the diffusion of his lights is as exquisite as it is natural, and the very times of the day in which he painted are immediately discoverable; the misty haze of the morning, the brilliant lustre of noon, the last blush of evening, and the lunar beam of night from his hands, presented the closest imitations of nature, and the utmost powers the art is susceptible of. Most of his subjects were furnished by his native city and the adjacent scenery, particularly his celebrated representation of the cattle-market at Dort, and the square where the troops exercised: his works are much sought after, and preserved as great curiosities; and yet, though now so highly prized, they fell into so much disrepute, that not many years since, a large collection of his best pictures sold for eight guineas apiece, so uncertain is the opinion and taste of the public.

——“He that depends

“Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead,

“And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?

“With every minute you do change a mind,

“And call him noble that was now your hate;

“Him vile that was your garland.”

Coriolanus, Act I.

Even our immortal Cowper experienced the severity of popular caprice. So diffidently did he think of his abilities, that he offered his first poems to his publisher; reserving only as a remuneration, a few copies to present to his friends, from an apprehension that his works might produce rather loss than profit. These productions were, on their first appearance, very rudely handled by most of the reviewers, and nearly the whole of the copies lay like so much waste paper for a long time in the bookseller’s shop.

Some time afterwards, not wholly discouraged by this mortifying neglect, he presented through the hands of a friend, his manuscript copy of that divine poem, “The Task” upon the same terms, the merit of which, dispelled the folly or ignorance of the town, as the rays of the sun pierce through and absorb the mist, and Cowper took a high rank amongst the living great men of his century; the fame of “The Task” brought into light his former discarded productions, and their sale has ever since continued to augment the wealth of his bookseller, the venerable and much respected Johnson.

The following very interesting and extraordinary circumstance occurred at Dort in the year 1785, which is still the frequent narrative of the young and old of that city, who relate it with mingled sensations of awe and delight, as an interposition of Divine Providence in favour of a widow and her family of this city. This woman, who was very industrious, was left by her husband, an eminent carpenter, a comfortable house with some land, and two boats for carrying merchandize and passengers on the canals. She was also supposed to be worth ten thousand guilders in ready money, which she employed in a hempen and sail-cloth manufactory, for the purpose of increasing her fortune and instructing her children (a son and two daughters) in useful branches of business.

One night about nine o’clock, when the workmen were gone home, a person dressed in uniform, with a musket and broad sword, came to her house, and requested a lodging. “I let no lodgings, friend,” said the widow, “and besides, I have no spare bed, unless you sleep with my son, which I think very improper, on account of your being a perfect stranger to us all.” The soldier then shewed a discharge from Diesbach’s regiment (signed by the Major, who gave him an excellent character), and a passport from Compte Maillebois, governor of Breda. The widow, believing the stranger to be an honest man, called her son, and asked him if he would accommodate a veteran, who had served the republic thirty years with reputation, with part of his bed. The young man consented; the soldier was accordingly hospitably entertained; and at a seasonable hour withdrew to rest.

Some hours afterwards, a loud knocking was heard at the street door, which roused the soldier, who moved softly down stairs, and listened at the hall door, when the blows were repeated, and the door almost broken through by a sledge, or some heavy instrument. By this time the widow and her daughters were much alarmed by this violent attack, and ran almost frantic through different parts of the house, exclaiming “Murder! Murder!” The son having joined the soldier with a case of loaded pistols, and the latter screwing on his bayonet and fresh priming his piece, which was charged with slugs, requested the women to keep themselves in a back room out of the way of danger. Soon after the door was bursted in, two ruffians entered, and were instantly shot by the son, who discharged both his pistols at once. Two other associates of the dead men immediately returned the fire, but without effect, when the intrepid and veteran stranger, taking immediate advantage of the discharge of their arms, rushed on them like a lion, ran one through the body with his bayonet, and whilst the other was running away, lodged the contents of his piece between his shoulders, and he dropped dead on the spot. The son and the stranger then closed the door as well as they could, reloaded their arms, made a good fire, and watched till day-light, when the weavers and spinners of the manufactory came to resume their employment, who were struck with horror and surprise at seeing four men dead on the dunghill adjoining the house, where the soldier had dragged them before they closed the door.

The burgomaster and his syndic attended, and took the depositions of the family relative to this affair. The bodies were buried in a cross-road, and a stone erected over the grave, with this inscription: “Here lie the remains of four unknown ruffians, who deservedly lost their lives, in an attempt to rob and murder a worthy woman and her family. A stranger who slept in the house, to which Divine Providence undoubtedly directed him, was the principal instrument in preventing the perpetration of such horrid designs, which justly entitles him to a lasting memorial, and the thanks of the public. John Adrian de Gries, a discharged soldier from the regiment of Diesbach, a native of Middleburgh in Zealand, and upwards of seventy years old, was the David who slew two of these Goliaths, the rest being killed by the son of the family. In honorem, a gratitudine ergo, Dei optimi maximi, pietatis et innocentæ summi protectoris, magistratus et concilium civitatis Dortrechiensis hoc signum poni curavere, xx. die Nov. annoque salutis humanæ, 1785.”

The widow presented the soldier with one hundred guineas, and the city settled a handsome pension on him for the rest of his life.

CHAPTER V.
LICENSED BROTHELS ... REMARKS UPON THEM ... DUTCH LITERARY MEETING DESCRIBED ... SPITTING POTS ... PIPES, DUTCH EXTRAVAGANT IN THEM ... SMOKING ... HISTORICAL ANECDOTE OF TOBACCO ... GENERAL TEMPERANCE OF THE DUTCH ... ARBITRARY POWER OF POLICE MASTERS ... TRAVELLING IN HOLLAND VERY CHEAP AND VERY AGREEABLE ... CANAL TO DELFT ... DUTCH SAWING MILLS ... ENGLISH CIRCULAR MASONRY MILLS ... DUTCH LANGUAGE ... SPECIMEN OF THE ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND GERMAN LANGUAGES.

It is matter of surprise to the contemplative traveller to observe in a country apparently so mechanically moral and regular as Holland, the glaring defects of the most loose and meretricious government: in the hearts of the finest cities are to be found brothels surpassing in iniquity all such seats of impurity in any other nation, in which the horrible novelty of the most savage oppression is united to a public, licensed, and authorised display of vice and profligacy. I mean the spill-houses, to one of which my laquais de place conducted me about ten o’clock at night, when those scenes of revelry open. In a street, in an inferior quarter of the town, the sound of fiddles and dancing announced the approach to one of these houses: presently my guide stopped before one of them, into the saloon of which he introduced me by pulling aside a curtain drawn before the door, near which, in a little raised orchestra, two fiddlers were scraping; upon benches at the other end of the room were seven or eight females, painted and dressed in all their finery, with large silver buckles, loose muslin robes, massy gilt ear-rings, and ornaments of the same metal round the head. Most of them looked very jaded. As soon as I entered, a bottle of wine and glasses, and pipes and tobacco, were put before me, for which I paid a florin, and which is considered as the premium of admission.

These miserable wretches were all prostitutes and prisoners, confined to this haunt of vice, and never suffered to pass its threshold until enabled, out of the wages of prostitution, to redeem themselves. The way in which they are ensnared into this brothel-dungeon is worthy of notice. The keeper of it hears of some girl who is in debt, frequently occasioned by dressing beyond her means, to set off her person to advantage at some of the music-rooms or other public places; he approaches her, pities her, offers her money to discharge her debts, advances her more for immediate and future purposes; she becomes his debtor: in a short time he seizes upon her person, and bears her away to his bagnio, and receives the profligate produce of her disgrace and infamy; and this scene of compound enormity is tolerated by the government, and has so continued for many years, till time has hardened the cruel practice into a custom which has become inoffensive to the people.

One of these poor wretches approached me; the affected gaiety of her deportment, so entirely discordant with the genuine feelings of a mind exposed to scenes of such humiliating profligacy, was in no little degree distressing; but I observed she drank the wine I gave her with a heavy heart, and some money I presented her with, excited expressions of gratitude, but no emotions of delight; from which I concluded that she was merely the channel through which my present would pass to her brutal gaoler; an apprehension which was confirmed to me by my lacquey upon my quitting this scene of complicated wretchedness.

It is a curious circumstance that to Solon, the wisest amongst the wise men of Greece, is attributed the origin of brothels: his motives may be appreciated in the following extracts. “Nicandre raconte dans le troisième livre des choses remarquables de Colophon, que le legislateur Solon a été le premier qui ait bâti un temple à Venus Pandemos. Philemon (Athenée liv. xiii. p. 569.) loue beaucoup la sage indulgence que Solon a témoignée par cette loi pour la foiblesse humaine: ‘Solon, tu as vraiment été le bienfaiteur du genre humain! car on dit que c’est toi qui a le premier pensé à une chose bien advantageuse au peuple ou plutôt au salut public. Oui, c’est avec raison que je dis ceci, lorsque je considère notre ville pleine de jeunes gens d’un temperament bouillant, et qui en consequence se porteraient à des excès impermissables. C’est pourquoi tu as acheté des femmes, et les as placées dans des lieux, où, pourvues de tout ce qui leur est nécessaire, elles deviennent communes à tous ceux qui en veulent.’” “Nicander relates in the third book of remarkable circumstances of Colophon, that the legislator Solon was the first who built a temple to Venus Pandemos. Philemon praises much the wise indulgence which Solon has shown by this law to human infirmity. ‘Solon! thou hast truly been the benefactor of the human race! for it is said that thou first thought of a measure greatly beneficial to the people, or rather to the public good. Yes, I say it with reason, when I see our town full of young men of warm constitutions, and who in consequence would indulge in censurable excesses. Therefore thou hast purchased women, and fixed them in places, where, provided with every thing they want, they become accessible to all who desire an intercourse with them.’”

The Dutch are so familiarized to these scenes, that parents frequently carry their children to them; from the hope of preserving them from vicious propensities, by placing before their eyes the nauseous and frightful images of suffering profligacy. Such an experiment in morals would be somewhat dubious in its operations; for vice like deformity ceases to disgust in proportion as it is contemplated. Such ideas never enter the sober brains of such visitors; they go to spend an hour, which to them is mirthful, and the poor wretches I have mentioned augment the pleasures of the scene by the gaudiness of their finery, and the company add to its vivacity. In the beauty of its plumage, “they forget the dying bird.”

Through considerable interest I was enabled to see the Rasp-House, or prison for male and female culprits: it is a large quadrangular building; most of the cells and rooms look towards the yard, which is considerably below the level of the street. The food is wholesome and abundant, and the chambers are kept very neat. I saw in this place nothing objectionable but the period allowed to the prisoners for taking exercise, which is infinitely too short and infrequent, each person being allowed to walk in the yard only once in the week; the consequence is, that few of the prisoners looked healthy.

Holland is justly celebrated for its public charities. In Rotterdam, before the last war, there were many benevolent institutions, some of which have inevitably languished, and others expired, in consequence of the political convulsions of the country and the usually impoverishing effects of long hostility.

In the streets I was surprised to see the horses shod in the shameful and clumsy manner they are: the shoe is behind elevated to a considerable height, so that the poor animal must suffer from the position into which he is always forced, resembling that of a lady in a high-heeled pair of shoes of the last century.

At my hotel I was much gratified by the whimsical appearance of a meeting called the Society of Variety and Unity, which was held there: about eighty Dutchmen of the middling classes of life were assembled in one of the rooms, to discuss philosophical, but more particularly religious questions: when I entered the room, one of their members was addressing the body upon the subject of death, as I was informed. His eloquence appeared to be as sluggish as the canal opposite; the motto of the fraternity was well illustrated by what appeared; the only variety I saw was in their pipes, and their unity was effected by the fumes of their tobacco, which seemed to blend them in one common mass of smoke.

I had not been two days in Holland without witnessing the abominable custom of introducing a spitting pot upon the table after dinner, into which, like the Kava bowl used amongst the natives of the South-sea islands, each person present who smokes, and that generally comprehends all who are present, discharges his saliva, which delicate depositary is handed round as regularly as the bottle. This custom is comparable in point of delicacy with that of washing the mouth and cleaning the teeth with a napkin after dinner, as in England, or picking the latter with a fork, as in France.

The Dutch are proverbial for smoking. The moment I entered any coffee-house, pipes and tobacco were introduced, as if the waiters were in dread of my imbibing some pestilent disease, without this sort of fumigation, and expressed uncommon surprise, when they remarked that I declined using them. The Dutch will insist upon it that smoking is not only as necessary to preserve their constitutions, as paint is to protect the exterior of their houses from the effects of their moist climate, but that the vapour invigorates the mind, which mounted like an aerial spirit upon a cloud, pours forth treasures of reflection with a brilliancy little short of inspiration.

The Dutch go to an astonishing expense in their pipes, which assume an endless variety of shapes, and are decorated sometimes with the most coxcombical figures painted upon the head or cup of it, according to the taste of its possessor.

Many of the opulent Hollanders use a pipe, the head of which is made of a clay which is very rare, and found only in Turkey, of so beautiful a colour, that is called the Meerschaum, or froth of the sea; for this piece of luxury the value of eight and even ten guineas is frequently paid.

The lower orders of society, and many of the higher, carry in their pockets their pipe, a pricker to clear the tube, a piece of tinder made in Germany from the large mushrooms growing on old trees, resembling spunge, a small steel and flint to kindle the fire with, and a box frequently capacious enough to contain a pound of tobacco.

It is curious to observe how naturally a pipe depends from a Dutchman’s mouth, and with what perfect facility he smokes without the assistance of either hand: he literally appears to have been formed by nature to breathe through this tube, with which he rides on horseback, drives in a carriage, and even dances. I have seen little boys take this instrument and puff away with an apparently instinctive predilection for the transatlantic weed. Smoking is a Dutchman’s panacea, he thinks it good in all cases, whether of consumptions, or plethora, nervous debility, or fiery fever: as a masticatory, tobacco is but little used even by the fishermen, sailors and boors; and I was surprised to find, that in the social shape of snuff, it seemed to have not many admirers.

Tobacco had many enemies to contend with. In 1610, the smoking of tobacco was known at Constantinople, but it was thought so injurious a custom, that to remove it by ridicule, a Turk who had been found smoking, was conducted about the streets with a pipe transfixed through his nose: it was a long time before the Dutch cultivated the plant themselves; previous to that period they purchased it, and that the very refuse of the English. In 1615, tobacco began to be sown about Amsfort in Holland.

By James I. the practice of smoking was severely and most whimsically denounced in a work, called “King James the Sixth’s (of Scotland) Counterblast to Tobacco,” in which the royal pedant states, “that some gentlemen of his courts were accustomed to expend no less than three or four hundred pounds a year upon this indulgence.” He also says, “that it was used as a powerful aphrodisiac.” He particularly deplores the case of delicate, wholesome, clean complexioned wives, whose husbands were not ashamed to pollute them with the perpetual stinking torment of tobacco smoke: the concluding sentence of this extraordinary composition is somewhat laughable. “The use of tobacco,” he says, “is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrid Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”

Few would wish to withhold from a Dutchman the narcotic enjoyment of his pipe, when they reflect, that he seeks no other species of oblivion to his care; for, I believe, notwithstanding a Dutchman’s eulogium upon his pipe, that it produces more oblivion than inspiration: he is scarcely ever seen intoxicated: indeed, drunkenness is held unpardonably infamous in Holland. To keep bad accounts, and to be seen inebriated, are equally disgraceful; and hence the use of wines and spirituous liquors is much less in Holland than in England.

The Dutch agree with Cassio’s reasoning:

——“Oh! that men should put an enemy into their mouths, to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!”

Othello, Act II. Scene 3.

The spill-houses are not the only objectionable instances of the abuse of the government; the police master is suffered to misuse his authority to a shameful excess. Instead of bringing delinquents to justice, he is in the frequent habit of privately compromising public offence, and putting the sum paid into his own pocket. Some time before I was in Rotterdam, a burgher who had been guilty of adultery, paid twenty thousand guilders to this minister of justice, who thus partaking of the commercial spirit of his country, becomes a merchant in delinquency.

I saw in several shops a great number of articles of English manufacture exposed to sale, particularly Manchester goods. The Dutch manufacture their own woollens, and they are esteemed to be very good. The black cloth of Holland is very well known, which is infinitely of a deeper and superior colour than ours. The principal cloth manufactures are at Leyden and Tielburg. There are also very capital and flourishing manufactures of velvets, silk, and carpets, at Hilversom; and those of linen and table-cloths, which are exquisite, at Overyssel; and numerous paper-mills.

The population of Rotterdam is estimated at sixty thousand inhabitants. Upon the whole, it is a gloomy place to live in; a constant iteration of the same canals, bridges, boats, houses, and figures, will soon damp the spirits of a traveller, unless naturally very vivacious. There is no theatre, no place of public amusement, but the spill-houses I have described, which are as much, at least to feeling minds, not accustomed to them, entitled to that appellation, as any of our houses of correction.

Here I bade adieu to my companions and friends, who proceeded direct to Germany, where I promised to rejoin them. I was by no means sorry to follow a lacquey to that quarter of the suburbs where the Delft boats set off every two hours, with my portmanteau, and to bid adieu to Rotterdam. Our treckschuyt lay ready for starting; at two o’clock, a little bell fastened on the outside of a house where the director resides, announced that all was ready; the horse was fastened to a very long, and rather a thin line, and we slipped through the liquid road, sensible of moving only from passing the objects that lined the sides of the canal, consisting for a considerable way of pretty houses and avenues of trees.

The treckschuyt is a long barge divided into two apartments; the after one, called the ruif or roof, possesses superior accommodations, and will hold from eight to a dozen persons, and the other from forty to fifty: this vessel, which is drawn by a single horse, moves so precisely at the rate of four miles an hour, that the Dutch always compute by the hour instead of the mile.[^[1]] In the cabin or roof, there are four oblique windows, which move up and down, a table in the middle, with a long drawer filled with pipes. The seats are covered with handsome cushions; but the prime accommodations are a spitting-box, and a little iron pot filled with burning turf, to furnish the smokers with fire for their pipes. The price is about three pence an hour: this part is generally occupied by persons of a superior condition. So steady is the motion of the vessel, that the passenger may read, write, or draw in it, without interruption.

[1]. The Dutch boors are also so regular in smoking their pipes, that in calculating the distances of places, they say they are so many pipes asunder.

The treckschuyts preserve an easy intercourse between the most distant parts of the kingdom, and the cheapness of their conveyance places them within the reach of the most slender purse. Every thing relative to these vessels is conducted with such admirable punctuality, that the passenger can tell to the smallest cost in the kingdom what his expenses will amount to, and to a minute when he shall arrive at the end of his journey, in which, if it be long, he carries his provision with him, or purchases a frugal meal at the house where the boat stops a few minutes for that purpose. At those places where the treckschuyts stop on account of the course of the canal being interrupted, and where passengers are in consequence obliged to quit one vessel to go to another, there are females who offer refreshments for sale, consisting of little rolls and small birds, and slices of cold baked eels, fastened to a small stick.

The treckschuyts are all under the direction of government, and are truly punctual, convenient, cheap, and agreeable. The town of Delft was about twelve miles, or three hours distant. On the sides of the canal, the surface of the water was frequently covered by the nymphæa alba, a magnificent white water-lily, whose expanded and unsullied flowers had a charming effect, particularly when intermixed with menyanthes nymphoides, the yellow fringed water-lily, which are very uncommon in England.

We passed by several sawing or wood mills, which are moved by wind: the machinery of those buildings, which I afterwards examined, is very curious; they were originally invented by Corneille Van Uitgust. The flies of the mill are fixed to a large beam, which turns on an axis; in the centre of the beam the principal wheel is fixed, which impels one immediately below it, which is also fixed on the middle of a piece of timber, hanging on an axis, to which four perpendicular saws, ten in each compartment, are fastened, which, as the wheel revolves, are elevated and depressed. Two iron hooks are fastened at the end of this beam, which catch a wheel, and as the saw rises and falls, move this wheel one cog; that wheel impels another, which catches into a piece of iron, and draws it towards itself; at the end of this iron there is a cross bar, which presses against the end of the tree, while the other end is sawing, and gradually forces it on to the teeth of the saws, as they proceed in cutting.

I remember at Memel, in Polish Prussia, the sawing mills there had another mechanical power, that of drawing up the trees from the barks in which they were brought in the river, into the yard or store-house. I believe mills for sawing timber have been introduced only partially into England. All the mills in Holland rise to a very great height, to secure as much wind at all times as possible. Many of these mills were thatched on the sides as well as the roof.

A very ingenious discovery, infinitely more curious than the Dutch sawing-mill, has, however, been recently made in London, by Sir George Wright, Bart. of machinery for sawing stone, for which a patent has been obtained, now the property of Samuel Hill, Esq. who has added many improvements to it. By means of a steam-engine, a number of saws are set in motion, by which a solid block of marble or stone, rough from the quarry, can be cut into shafts of columns of diminishing diameters, one within the other, at the same time: the blocks fixed in an iron circular frame, resting upon four small wheels, by which they can be turned round by the person who has the care of a certain number of them, to keep the saws, which are almost in a horizontal position, constantly acting upon them; the blocks are a little inclined, to enable the saws to be supplied with water from a trough above, conducted by means of tin pipes to the respective orifices.

By means of this admirable invention, a saving of three-fourths of the stone is produced upon a block of large diameter; the outer cases being as strong as the cube, five men can perform the work which occupied forty before the discovery; and stone columns are reduced to the price of wooden ones. These saws can also cut out an entire gothic window, which they effect at a saving of eighty per cent. with great beauty and precision, and which in its former construction was divided into six different parts; the last savings or cubes, upon being cemented together, constitute a complete gothic column, and the concavity of the divided outer case of a large column forms an entire recess; a block will also, after it has afforded several shafts of columns, form a handsome series of chimnies. The pipes for conveying water by this machinery are much preferred, on account of their durability: the proprietors of several public works have adopted them in preference to those of wood, which are continually wanting repairs. This highly ingenious discovery has been matured and prosecuted with great public spirit and expense by the proprietor, and promises, from its great utility and economy, to become an object of high national importance.

In our treckschuyt, I witnessed a strong contrast to the spirits and loquacity of the French and Germans; all was smoke and silence, save when it yielded to a few short sentences, in which the word mi vrow frequently met my ear. One very grave elderly gentleman, who wore an enormous curled and powdered wig, and who somewhat resembled Lord Burleigh in the Critic, spoke but once all the way, and that was in the following oracular sentence; “Wat is goed voor de man is ook goed voor de vrow—What is good for the husband, is as good for the wife;” so similar in many instances are the Dutch and English languages, that some of our witlings have observed that bad English will make very good Dutch. M. Siegenbeek, minister of the anabaptist church at Leyden, and the first who has occupied the chair for Dutch literature and eloquence in the university of that city, in which, by his genius and attainments, he reflects honour upon his country, has published a very ingenious work, entitled, Verhandeling over de Nederduitsche Spelling; a Treatise on Dutch Orthography, tending to render it uniform: this work and another by the same author, called Verhandeling over den Ionsted, &c. or a Treatise on the Influence of Euphony or agreeable Sound, and of the Facility of Pronunciation, on the orthography of the Dutch language, were, at the instigation and by the able exertions of M. Vander Palm, the agent of national education, some years since published, for the improvement of the national language and poetry. The late Batavian government adopted the system of orthography proposed by M. Siegenbeek, and ordered it to be used by all the offices of administration.

It is generally understood that the language of Holland is divided into High and Low Dutch, whereas there is but one pure language, as in England, which is called Neder Duitch, the language of the Netherlands, or of a country lying very low. In Holland, as in every other country, there is a variety of provincial idioms; for instance, a raw native of Friesland would not be understood at Amsterdam.

Of the Dutch language our immortal lexicographer, Johnson, says, “Our knowledge of the northern literature is so scanty, that of words undoubtedly Teutonic the original is not always to be found in any ancient language, and I have therefore inserted Dutch or German substitutes, which I consider not as radical, but parallel; not as the parent of, but as sisters to the English.” To close this digression, the language, I must confess, did not sound dissonant to my ear from the lips of well-bred persons.

The following specimens will enable the reader to observe the solidity of the learned doctor’s remark.

Was you at Lord Nelson’s funeral? Yes.

Waart gy by Lord Nelson’s begravenis? Ja.

Waren sie bey Lord Nelson’s begræbniss? Ja.

Be then so good as to describe it to me.

Weest dan zoo goed en beschryft het my.

Sein sie dann so gut, und beschreiben sie es mir.

The procession was abruptly broken into three parts,

De processie was volmaakt afgebroken in drie deelen,

Die procession war plœtzlich abgebrochen in drey theile,

or rather there were three distinct and unconnected processions.

of eerder er waare drie veschillende & afgezonderde processien.

oder vielmehr, es waren drey verschiedene & abgesonderte processionen.

First came trumpeters playing the dead march in Saul,

Eerst kwamen de trompetters de dood marsch in Saul blaasende,

Zuerst kamen die trompeter, die den Toden marsch in Saul bliessen,

followed by a large body of cavalry and foot soldiers,

gevolgd door een groot corps ruitery en infantery,

auf welche ein grosses corps cavallerie und infanterie folgte,

having the appearance of going to a review.

het voorkomen hebbende als of zy naar een revue ginge.

welches aussahe, als wenn sie nach einer revue giengen.

When they had passed, and patience was nearly exhausted,

Toen zy voorby waaren, & het geduld byna ten einde was,

Als sie vorbei waren, und die gedult beinahe erschœpft war,

and a million or more of teeth had chattered with the cold,

en een millioen van tande ge klappert hadden van de koude,

und millionen zæhne geklappert hatten vor kælte,

more melancholy trumpeters appeared, blowing dirges,

verscheenen nog meerder droevige trompetters treur liederren blaazende,

erschienen andere melancholische trompeter, die trauerlieder bliessen,

then followed a line of mourning coaches, one filled with

daarna volgde een rey rouw koet zen van de welke eene

alsdann folgte eine reihe trauerwagen, der eine gefült mit

little flags, as returning from a Dutch fair;

met kleine vlaggen gevuld was, als komende van een Hollandsche kermis;

kleinen flaggen, als kæme er von einer Hollændischen kirmis zurück;

another with a knight’s shirt, spurs, and gloves,

een ander met een ridders hembd, spooren & handschoenen,

ein anderer mit eines ritters hemd, spornen und handschuen,

which dangled in the air from little white wands,

al het welke in de lugt wapperde, hangende aan witte stockjes,

welche flatterten in der luft, an kleinen weisen stecken hangend,

then succeeded a group of noble fellows,

dan volgde een hoop braave knaape uitmaakende,

dann folgte ein haufen braver kerls,

part of the crew of Nelson’s ship,

gedeelte van het volk van Nelson’s schip,

ein theil der mannschafft von Nelson’s schiff,

their faces were embrowned by the hard duties of war;

hun aangezichte waare bruin door de harde oorlogs pligte;

ihre gesichter waren braun geworden durch die harten kriegs dienste;

their hearts seemed touched with genuine sorrow;

hunne herte scheenen aangedaan door op rechte droefheid;

ihre hertzen schienen gerührt mit aufrichtigem schmerze;

very few could look upon them with dry eyes.

zeer weinige konde hun met drooge oogen aanzien.

Sehr wenige konnten auf sie sehen mit trocknen augen.

In the simple garb of sailors, with downcast looks,

In de eenvoudige matroozen kleeding met neergeslagen oogen,

In der einfachen matrosenkleidung, mit niedergeschlagenen blicken,

they engaged more attention than all the military pomp

trokken zy meerder aandacht op zig als al de militaire

zogen sie mehr aufmerksamkeit auf sich, als alle militaire pracht

which had preceded them;

die hun voorafgegaan was:

die ihnen vorangegangen war:

I saw one of them raise his rough hand to his eye

Ik zag, een van hun, zyn ruwe hand tot zyn oog brengen

Ich sahe einen von ihnen seine rauhe hand nach seinem auge bringen

and wipe away a tear—perchance the first he ever shed.

en een traan afwissen de eerste dien hy mischien in zyn leeven gestort had.

und eine thraene abwischen, vielleicht die erste, welche er jemals vergoss.

All thought the hero’s body would immediately follow.

een yder dagt dat nu het lichaam van den held volgen.

jederman glaubte, des helden leichnam werde unmittelbar folgen.

An hour had elapsed, during which the volunteers

Een uur ging voorby, geduurende het welke de vrywillige

Eine stunde gieng vorüber, wæhrend welcher die freiwilligen

broke from their ranks to get refreshments,

uithunne geleederren liepen om zig te verfrischen,

aus ihren reihen liefen, um sich zu erfrischen,

and all was chaos and confusion—These brave men,

en alles was een Caos van verwarring—Deeze braave mannen,

und alles war chaos und verwirrung—Diese braven maenner,

although they have been slandered by one high in the state,

al hoewel zy door een groot man in de staat geheekelt waaren,

Obschon sie von einem hohen staats manne sind verhoehnet worden,

will, when the hour arrives, discharge their duty.

zullen, wanneer de tyd koomt, hunne pligt voldoen.

werden, wann die stunde kommt, ihre pflicht thun.

At last, when every eye had been strained with expectation,

Eindelyk, toen yder oog vermoeid was door verwagting,

Endlich, als jederman’s auge gespannt war mit erwartung,

the dark plumed car appeared, bearing the remains

verscheen de zwarte gepluimde, kar met de overblyfsels

erschien der schwarze, gefederte wagen, tragend die uberbleibsel

of the mighty chief, whose fame will live as long

van de magtige bevelhebber, wiens roem zoo lang zal bestaan

des maechtigen befehlshabers, dessen ruhm bestehen wird so lange

as the ocean which supported him

als de oceaan die hem in zyn triumph

als der ocean, der ihn trug

in his triumph, shall roll his waves.

droeg zyne baaren rollen zal.

in seinem triumph, wird seine wellen wælzen.

No solemn music announced its approach,

Geen solemneel muziek verkondigde zyn naadering,

keine feierliche musik verkündigte seine ankunft,

or closed its melancholy movement.

of sloot zyn droevige beweeging.

oder beendigte seine melancholische bewegung.

A line of mourning coaches succeeded,

Een rey van gemeene rouw koetzen volgde,

Eine reihe von gemeinen trauerwagen folgte,

at unequal distances.

in ongelyke afstanden.

in ungleicher entfernung.

Many of them, having been left behind,

Verscheide zyndeagter af gebleeven,

Viele von ihnen, die zurück geblieben waren,

drove furiously along the streets,

reede met drift door de straaten,

fuhren wüthend durch die strassen,

and so closed this public spectacle,

en zoo sloot dit algemeen spectakel,

und so endigte sich dieses œffentliche schauspiel,

upon which enormous sums were lavished to show,

voor het welke groote somme weggeworpe waaren omde,

auf welches grosse summen sind verschwendet worden, zu zeigen,

the nation’s love of valour, and its want of taste.

natsie haar liefde voor moed, & gebrek aan smaak te tonen.

der nation’s liebe für tapferkeit, & ihren mangel an geschmack.

CHAPTER VI.
DEXTERITY OF BOATMEN ... OVERCHIE ... DUTCH GINGERBREAD ... A FRENCH SAYING ... DELFT CHINA ... DELFT ... DUTCHMAN’S REMARK ON THE WAR ... NEW CHURCH ... ANECDOTE OF GROTIUS ... AFFECTIONATE STRATAGEM ... GROTIUS’S REMARKS ON EDUCATION ... BARNEVELDT ... NOBLE FEMALE ANECDOTE ... THE CARILLONS ... CARILLONEURS ... DUTCH FRUGALITY TOWARDS THE DEAD ... REVOLUTIONARY MODERATION ... FIRMNESS OF MANUFACTURERS.

My companions continued smoking, and enjoying the delightful novelty of our aquatic conveyance and the surrounding scenery. We met several boats, and the dexterity by which the line was slackened by one boat, to permit the other, which kept its towing mast standing, to pass over the cord, according to the custom which governs this sort of rencontre on the canal, was admirable, as also was the ease and skill with which the skipper who has the care of the line throws it up on one side, and catches it on the other of a bridge under which the boat is obliged to pass.

At Overchie, a village about three miles, or one hour from Rotterdam, the houses are close to the water, and little children were playing on its very margin without exciting any apprehension. In this town the prospect of a late dinner induced me to taste its gingerbread, for which Holland is very justly celebrated. Before every cottage, brass kettles and pans just cleaned were placed upon stools in the open air, or were polishing under the hands of their indefatigable owners; and even certain utensils shone with such resplendent brightness in the sun, that the well-known saying which the French whimsically apply to the grave and thoughtful, Il est sérieux comme un pot de chambre, would lose the fidelity of its resemblance here.

We were passed by several curricles, a very common carriage in this part of Holland, the horses in rope harness, going to and from Rotterdam. In the roof of the boat were some ladies and gentlemen, who, as well as I could discern through the smoke, seemed pleased to see me so with their country. The land all the way on each side was rich pasture. On our left, a short distance from Delft, we passed a cannon foundry, and on our right some potteries, where the Delft china, formerly much prized all over Europe, and which Vandevelt and other eminent artists embellished with their pencils, used to be manufactured in great abundance. These potteries, since last war, have greatly declined, to the severe injury of the adjoining town.

The principal cause of the decay of these potteries has been the vast quantities of porcelain which, for more than a century and a half, have been imported from China into Europe, and the great improvement of that beautiful manufacture in England and Germany. Some years since the earth-ware of Staffordshire was so much admired in Holland, that to protect the manufacture of Delft from utter ruin, the States General imposed a duty upon its importation into the republic, that nearly amounted to a prohibition. Hence the name of an Englishman is not very popular in Delft. I tasted some excellent beer in this town, which is celebrated for its breweries, and produces an admirable imitation of London bottled porter.

The town is very ancient and picturesque; at the place where we disembarked, were several treckschuyts moored under an old castellated gateway, from which, preceded by a commissary or licensed porter, who attends the moment the boat arrives, with his wheelbarrow, to convey the luggage of the passengers, we entered Delft, the capital of Delftland, in the province of Holland, and proceeded to a very comfortable inn, which furnished some good cutlets, and a bottle of claret. Before the hotel all was bustle, from the number of carriages filled with genteel people proceeding to, and returning from the Hague, to and from which boats are passing every half hour.

Here, as in every inn in Holland, however humble, the guest has always the comfort of a silver fork placed by his side, and a tablecloth of snowy whiteness: in the room where I dined was a glass china cupboard, and every article within it bore shining testimony to its having received a due proportion of diurnal care. Delft is a large but gloomy town, and as silent as a monastery, except in the street immediately leading to the Hague; upon quitting which, no sound was to be heard but that of mops and buckets: narrow, green, stagnant canals divide most of the streets, which are generally, for some little distance before the houses, paved with black and white marble. However, the principal part of the town is handsome, having two spacious streets, with broad canals bordered with trees.

The navigation is interrupted from the Rotterdam entrance to that of the Hague, so that the water within it presents no animating object. In this town turf is principally burnt.

Although the taciturnity of the place would induce a stranger to think its population small, it reckons 13,000 inhabitants, 6000 of whom, since the war, have been reduced to the class of paupers. I met with two or three inhabitants who spoke good English, and expressed in terms of feeling misery, the heavy losses and distresses which they had sustained by a rupture with England; yet, strange as it may appear, they seemed to think well of their new government, and spoke with great esteem of their king, of whom they said they well knew, he felt the impolicy of a war with England as much as any Dutchman, and that he would rejoice at the hour, when the great political events which were passing in other parts of the world, would admit of a renewal of amity and free intercourse with that country; they spoke of the government of the Stadtholder with contempt, and of the Republic with detestation.

I visited the new church, the tower of which is very fine, and of a prodigious altitude. The first object that excited my curiosity, was the tomb of the immortal Grotius, whose remains were brought here, after he expired at Rostock, in 1645, upon his return from the court of Christina, Queen of Sweden, to this, his native city. The tomb erected to his memory is simple, but handsome; it consists of a medallion representing the head of this great man, and a child leaning upon an urn with a torch inverted. The epitaph in latin is elegant, and expressive of the merits and virtues it perpetuates. I regret, upon opening my memorandums, to find my pencil copy of it so effaced as to be unintelligible: of this great civilian and general scholar, Aubere du Marier, who knew him very intimately said, “that he was tall, strong, and a well made man, and had a very agreeable countenance. With all those excellences of body, his mind was still more excellent. He was a man of openness, of veracity, and of honour, and so perfectly virtuous, that throughout his whole life, he made a point of avoiding and of deserting men of bad character, but of seeking the acquaintance of men of worth, and persons distinguished by talents, not only of his own country, but of all Europe, with whom he kept up an epistolary correspondence.”

Grotius displayed great precocity of talents. At the age of fifteen, he accompanied the Dutch ambassador, Barneveldt, into France, and was honoured by several marks of esteem by Henry the Fourth, who at that age discovered extraordinary powers in the mind of Grotius, but could not help expressing his surprise, that the States should send a youth without a beard as an assistant to their ambassador; upon which the stripling astonished the great Henry by this brilliant reply: “Had my country conceived that your Majesty measured ability by the length of the beard, they would have sent in my room a he goat of Norway.”

At seventeen he pleaded as a civilian at the bar in his own country, and was not twenty-four when appointed attorney general. He escaped from the castle of Louvestein, where he was condemned to be imprisoned for life, for the share he had in the affairs which proved the ruin of Barneveldt, in the following interesting manner: his wife, Maria Van Reygersbergen, who was most tenderly attached to him, and a lady of great learning and accomplishments, conciliated the esteem of the wife of the governor of the castle so far as to obtain permission, during the absence of the governor one day, to have removed from her husband’s apartment a large quantity of books, which he had borrowed of a friend at Gorcum: by the address and excellent management of a servant maid, Grotius occupied the place of the books in the trunk; he was safely conveyed from the castle, not without imminent peril of being drilled through the body, in consequence of the porters who carried him down stairs, suspecting that the trunk held a more learned treasure, than that which it was said to contain.

Grotius took refuge in France, which he quitted in consequence of the illiberal conduct of the Cardinal de Richlieu towards him, and accepted of an invitation from that singular princess Christina, queen of Sweden, who was greatly attached to him, and made him her ambassador at Paris, where the Cardinal gave him much trouble, in consequence of his not yielding precedence to him. When Grotius had breathed his last, his countrymen felt contrition for their oppression, and struck a medal in honour of him, on which he is styled, “The Oracle of Delft, the Phœnix of his Country.”

——“This common body,

“Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,

“Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide.”

Anth. and Cleop. Act I. Sc. 4.

The lines of Horace may be well applied to this great man;

Urit enim fulgore suo, qui praergravat artes

Infra se positas: extinctus amabitur idem.

I shall conclude these interesting anecdotes of Grotius, by giving his excellent sentiments on the education of boys, as he imparted them to Isaac Vossius, which in my humble opinion ought to be considered as a treasure to every parent; “Many persons,” says he, “make use of tutors for the education of their children, which hardly ever succeeds as it was intended. I have never approved of that method of education, for I know that young persons learn only when they are together, and that their application is languid where there is no emulation. I am as little of a friend to schools, where the master scarce knows the names of his scholars; where the number is so great that he cannot distribute his attention upon each of them, whose composition requires a particular attention. For these reasons I wish that a medium of the two methods were taken, that a master took only ten or twelve boys, who should live in the same house, and be of the same classes, by which means the master himself would not be overloaded with cares.” Grotius also recommends the student to begin with those histories which are nearest to his own time.

The fate of Barneveldt is related with great spirit by Voltaire, who says, But human affairs are ever chequered with good and evil. Mankind are so apt to deviate from their principles, that this republic (Holland) had nearly destroyed the liberty for which she had so bravely fought, and persecution boiled in the blood of a people, whose happiness and laws were founded on toleration. Two calvinistical doctors did what so many doctors have done in so many other places. Gomar and Arminius disputed most furiously at Leyden, about what neither of them understood. This produced dissensions in the United Provinces.

The dispute was in many respects similar to those of the Thomists and Scotists, or of the Jansenists and Molinists, concerning predestination, grace, liberty, and other obscure and frivolous articles, where they know not how to define the very subject on which they dispute. The leisure they enjoyed during the truce, unluckily gave those ignorant people an opportunity to fill their heads with theological disputes, till at length, out of a scholastic controversy, there arose two parties in the state. Maurice, Prince of Orange, headed the Gomarists, and the pensionary Barneveldt supported the Arminians.

Du Maurier says, that he had been told by the ambassador his father, that Maurice having proposed to the pensionary Barneveldt, to concur in giving him the supreme power, this zealous republican showed him the danger and injustice of the proposal, and from that time Barneveldt’s ruin was resolved upon. This however is certain, that the Stadtholder endeavoured to increase his authority by means of the Gomarists, and Barneveldt to check it by means of the Arminians: that several towns levied soldiers who were called Expectants, because they expected orders from the magistrate, but would take none from the Stadtholder: that there were insurrections in some cities, and that Prince Maurice vigorously persecuted the opposite party. At length he convened a calvinistical council at Dordrecht, composed of all the reformed churches in Europe, except that of France, the deputies from which were not permitted by the King of France to attend.

The fathers of this synod who had exclaimed so loudly against the fathers of various councils, and against their authority, condemned the Arminians, just as they themselves had been condemned by the council of Trent. Above a hundred Arminian ministers were banished from the United Provinces. Prince Maurice chose twenty-six commissioners from the nobility and the magistrates, to try the grand pensionary Barneveldt, the celebrated Grotius, and some others of the Arminian party. They had been kept six months in confinement, previous to their trial.

One of the chief motives of the revolt of the Seven Provinces, and of the house of Orange, against Spain, was the Duke of Alva’s severity, in suffering the accused to languish for a long period in confinement, without bringing them to trial, and in appointing commissioners to condemn them. The same grievances which had caused such complaints under the Spanish monarchy, were revived in the bosom of liberty. Barneveldt was beheaded at the Hague, more unjustly than Count Egmont, and Count Horn at Brussels. He was an old man of seventy, who had served the Republic forty years in the cabinet, with as much success as Maurice and his brothers had served her in the field. The sentence imported, “That he had done all he could to vex the Church of God.”

A charming anecdote is related of the admirable conduct of the widow of Barneveldt. After he had perished on the scaffold, his sons, René and William, entered into a conspiracy to revenge his death, in which they were discovered. William fled, but René was taken and condemned to die. His mother solicited his pardon of Prince Maurice, who replied, “It appears strange that you do that for your son, which you refused to do for your husband;” to which she nobly replied, “I did not ask pardon for my husband, because he was innocent; I ask it for my son, because he is guilty.”

The view from the steeple of this church is esteemed the most beautiful in Holland, and is remarkable fine and extensive; but the beauty of the scenery is principally at a distance, as the land immediately surrounding the town is boggy, dotted with piles of white turf. The chimes of this church, or as they are called, the Carillons, are very numerous, consisting of four or five hundred bells, which are celebrated for the sweetness of their tones. This species of music is entirely of Dutch origin, and in Holland and the countries that formerly belonged to her, it can only be heard in great perfection. The French and Italians have never imitated the Dutch in this taste; we have made the attempt in some of our churches, but in such a miserably bungling manner, that the nerves of even a Dutch skipper would scarcely be able to endure it.

These carillons are played upon by means of a kind of keys communicating with the bells, as those of the piano forte and organ do with strings and pipes, by a person called the Carilloneur, who is regularly instructed in the science, the labor of the practical part of which is very severe, he being almost always obliged to perform in his shirt with his collar unbuttoned, and generally forced by exertion into a profuse perspiration, some of the keys requiring a two pound weight to depress them: after the performance, the Carilloneur is frequently obliged immediately to go to bed: by pedals communicating with the great bells, he is enabled with his feet to play the base to several sprightly and even difficult airs, which he performs with both his hands upon the upper species of keys, which are projecting sticks, wide enough asunder to be struck with violence and celerity by either of the two hands edgeways, without the danger of hitting the adjoining keys. The player uses a thick leather covering for the little finger of each hand, to prevent the excessive pain which the violence of the stroke, necessary to produce sufficient sound, requires: these musicians are very dextrous, and will play pieces in three parts, producing the first and second treble with the two hands on the upper set of keys, and the base as before described. By this invention a whole town is entertained in every quarter of it; that spirit of industry which pervades the kingdom, no doubt originally suggested this sudorific mode of amusing a large population, without making it necessary for them to quit their avocations one moment to enjoy them. They have often sounded to my ear, at a distance, like the sounds of a very sweet hand-organ; but the want of something to stop the vibration of each bell, to prevent the notes of one passage from running into another, is a desideratum which would render this sort of music still more highly delightful. Holland is the only country I have been in, where the sound of bells was gratifying. The dismal tone of our own on solemn occasions, and the horrible indiscriminate clashing of the bells of the Greek church in Russia, are, at least to my ear, intolerable nuisances. I afterwards learnt that the carillons at Amsterdam have three octaves, with all the semi-tones complete on the manual, and two octaves in the pedals; each key for the natural sound projects near a foot, and those for the flats and sharps, which are played several inches higher, only half as much. The British army was equally surprised and gratified, by hearing upon the carillons of the principal church at Alkmaar, their favorite air of “God save the king” played in a masterly manner, when they entered that town.

In this church is a superb monument raised to the memory of William the First, the great Prince of Orange, in the east end of the church, which is semicircular, and a range of semicircular pillars support the roof: within these pillars is a large space railed off, and paved with black and white marble, under which is the family vault of the House of Orange; in the centre is the monument, a sarcophagus on which is placed a marble figure of the above prince, in his robes after death: at his feet is a dog, the expression of whose countenance is very much admired; above is a marble canopy supported by four buttresses of white marble, and twenty columns of black and gold in fine style: the epitaph, in small obscure characters, is inscribed upon a tablet held up by two boys in bronze, and at each corner of the tomb stands a bronze figure, the first representing Liberty with a cap, inscribed with aurea libertas; the second is Fortitude, the third Religion, and the fourth Justice, not blind, but ardently gazing upon the balance in her hand. Under an arch at the head of the tomb is a bronze statue of the same prince, and at the other end a figure of Fame just taking wing. The other internal parts of this edifice are adorned with the usual mortuary decorations in Holland, long sable lines of escutcheons. I am as little fond of describing, as I am sure my reader must be of reading, minute descriptions of monuments; but I have been particular here, because the Dutch, with their accustomed frugality, do not much indulge in mausoleums and statues. In France, the late revolution, in its savage phrenzy, with hands still reeking with the blood of the dying, tore open the tombs of princes, and their favourites, and disfigured the consecrated depositaries with the shattered fragments of their marble mausoleums: that revolution, which, with the guillotine in front, and the broken cross in the rear, threatened to spread over and waste the whole of civilized Europe, marched to Holland, where thousands flocked to its standard; but it there very rarely inebriated the mind, and never overpowered the national love of economy; it taught them to despise and expel their living princes, but with pious frugality they spared the costly asylums of their illustrious dead.

CHAPTER VII.
SPIRITED REMONSTRANCE ... ANECDOTE OF A REGICIDE ... INTERESTING ANECDOTE OF FRANK HALS AND VANDYKE ... A DUTCH BLOOMFIELD ... DELIGHTFUL PASSAGE TO THE HAGUE ... DUTCH DISCUSSION OF DESDEMONA’S WISH ... RYSWICK ... APPROACH TO THE HAGUE ... DUTCH REVIEW ... OLD AND NEW CONSTITUTIONS COMPARED ... BRIEF REVIEW OF THE ANCIENT CONSTITUTION OF HOLLAND ... ALSO OF THE POLITICAL HISTORY ... REMARKS ON THE PRINCES OF THE HOUSE OF ORANGE.

It is but just to state, however, that, during their political change, many of the people displayed great firmness, and none more than the manufacturers of this town, who in the year 1803 presented to the executive government of the Batavian republic, a very spirited remonstrance against the temporary suspension of an edict passed in 1802, prohibiting the importation of foreign manufactures of which the following is an extract: “Should we be left destitute,” said they, “of that just and lawful support, which we still hope to obtain, we shall be compelled to demand, that the laws which forbid the exportation of manufacturing tools and implements be repealed, in order that we may be enabled to sell our valuable tools and implements, which will then become altogether useless to us, to foreigners who know how to appreciate their value, or to transplant our manufactories into countries where they daily experience the encouragement which they so highly deserve.”

Not far from the old church, the tower of which is alarmingly out of its perpendicular, is the identical house in which William I. was murdered by a bigoted hireling of the King of Spain in 1584. A Dutch inscription, placed over two holes in the wall on the stairs, made by the pistol bullets after they had passed through his body, communicates the savage circumstance. The bigots of Spain celebrated the murderer as a martyr, and his family were ennobled and pensioned. A solitary instance of honours being paid to a regicide. Well has our immortal bard observed:

——If I could find example

Of thousands, that had struck anointed kings,

And flourish’d after, I’d not do’t; but since

Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment bears not one,

Let villainy itself forswear’t.

Winter’s Tale.

The old church had not sufficient attractions to induce me to enter it. The tombs of Admirals Tromp and Heine are there. Opposite the new church, in the great square, is the Stadt or Town House, the front of which is extensive, and very curious: in this house are some excellent pictures by Frank Hals, who died in 1666: this artist is justly celebrated for the beauties of his colouring and penciling. A pleasant anecdote is related of Vandyke’s having so high an opinion of the genius of this artist, that he went to Haarlem, where Hals lived, for the sole purpose of visiting him, and introduced himself as a gentleman on his travels, who had but two hours to spare, and wished in that time to have his portrait painted: Hals, who was enjoying his bottle at a tavern at the time, sprang from his companions, and on the first canvass he could lay his hands upon, commenced the portrait with all possible celerity; after he had proceeded some way, Vandyke desired to look at his progress, and observed, with great pleasantry in his countenance, that the work seemed to be so very easy, that he thought he could do the same: upon which he took up the palette and pencils, requested Hals to sit down, and painted his portrait in a quarter of an hour: the moment Hals saw it, he exclaimed with rapturous astonishment, “No one but Vandyke could have achieved such a wonder!” and embraced him with transport. Vandyke was desirous of Hals accompanying him to England, where he promised to make his fortune, but he declared that the enjoyment of his bottle and his friend was too powerful to permit him to accept of so generous and promising a proposal. Of this great painter Vandyke said, that he would have been unequalled had he given more tenderness to his colouring, and that in his pencil he was without a rival.

In the council chamber there is a fine composition by Bronchorst, who died 1661, representing the judgment of Solomon, and another of Christ driving the money changers out of the temple; the figures are finely finished, and the architecture, in which he excelled, truly admirable. In the great hall of the physicians and surgeons is a celebrated picture by Cornelius de Morn or Maan, who was born in this town, and who died 1706: the subject of it is a representation of the most celebrated doctors and surgeons of his time: it is in the manner of Titian, and in high estimation. Michael Jansen Mirevelt, who died in 1641, was also born in this town: he was an admirable portrait painter, and is said to have been in such high repute, and so indefatigable, that Sandrart, Descampe, and the authors of the Abrégé de la Vie des Peintres assert, that he painted at least ten thousand portraits, for the smallest of which he never received less than one hundred and fifty guilders, or fifteen pounds. In the surgeons’ hall there is a fine picture by this artist.

This town has produced also a self-taught poet, who flourished rather more than a century since, of the name of Hubert Noot. This man, who is said to be the father of Dutch pastoral and elegiac poetry, much resembles our Bloomfield in his early difficulties and his talents: he made his verses whilst he laboured, and committed them to memory from not being able to write. After he had taught himself to read, he even sold his wearing apparel to purchase books. He died in 1733: his images are said to be highly poetical, and his versification melodious.

In the Spin-house, or Bridewell, were several female prisoners, many of whom had been confined for several years, for respecting the genial laws of nature more than the sober laws of the nation, and some of them, for the same offence, had been publicly and severely flogged. What a contradiction in this government does its Spin and its Spill-houses present! In one place it sanctions prostitutes, and in the other imprisons and scourges them! Perhaps the legislature may think that it punishes the poor prostitute of the spill-house, by the oppression of her creditor and her gaoler; and thus, by Justice presenting a variety of shapes, she realizes the remark of our divine bard;

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,

Setting it to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape, till custom make it

Their perch, and not their terror.

Measure for Measure, Act III. Scene 5.

The stranger will find nothing to detain him in this melancholy town long. In Holland every traveller naturally becomes amphibious: the constant contemplation of so much water quickly engenders all the inclinations of a webfooted animal, and he soon feels out of his proper element when out of a canal. Right merrily did I follow my commissionary and his wheel barrow with my baggage through the whole town, until I reached the Hague gate, when my favourite conveyance, the treckschuyt, was ready to start. The boat-bell rung, all the party got on board, and away we glided, passing on each side of us the most lovely close scenery. Instead of seeing, as had been represented to me in England, a dull monotonous scene of green canals, stunted willows, and from a solitary house or two, foggy merchants stupidly gazing in fixed attention upon frog water, the canal was enlivened with boats of pleasure and traffic continually passing and repassing, the noble level road on the right, broad enough to admit four or five carriages abreast, thickly planted with rows of fine elms, the number of curricles and carriages, and horses, driving close to the margin of the water, the fine woods, beautiful gardens, country-houses, not two of which were similiar; the eccentricity of the little summer temples hanging over the edges of the canal; the occasional views of rich pasture land, seen as I saw them, under a rich, warm sky, formed a tout ensemble as delightful as it was novel, and very intelligibly expressed our approach to the residence of sovereignty. The single ride from Delft to the Hague would alone have repaid the trouble and occasional anxiety I experienced in getting into, and afterwards out of the country.

All the principal country-houses have a wooden letter-box standing upon the margin of the canal, into which one of the boatmen, upon the treckschuyt being steered close to the adjoining bank, without stopping, drops the letters and parcels directed to the family residing there. In no part of the continent is social intercourse and communication so frequent, cheap, and certain.

For keeping the dams and roads in repair, turnpikes are established at proper distances, and the care of their repair is confided to directors, who are always gentlemen of high respectability, and receive a fixed salary for their services. The principal roads are kept in good condition; and, on account of the flatness of the country, are very easy for the horses, but the bye roads are intolerably bad.

In the steerage I found three very handsome and well-bred Dutch young ladies seated, one of whom spoke English very well: they all insisted upon my being an Englishman the moment I entered the boat; how they could think so, the spirit of physiognomy, if there be such a spirit, must explain; for in my best hours of health and delight, John Bull would scarcely acknowledge me for one of his family.

My charming companions talked much of Shakspeare and Milton, with both of whom they seemed to be familiar. They entered with much ability on Desdemona’s wish, alluding to her passion for Othello, “that Heaven had made her such a man.” Two of the three fair disputants contended that she would have been more happy had Providence made her a man, and such a man as Othello; the other observed that was impossible, for as she was deeply in love with the Moor it would have been irreconcileable to her passion to wish to be of his own sex, by which she could have felt only friendship for him. I was so pleased with my fair voyageurs, who talked, sung, and laughed, with so much talent, taste, and vivacity, that our two hours or six miles, the distance from Delft to the Hague passed rapidly away, and tempted me not to quit the vessel to visit the village of Ryswick, which lies about half way, and is only about half a mile from the canal, and, I am told, abounds with beauty and richness of scenery. It is known to the political world for the celebrated peace concluded there at a little palace of William III. called the House of Neubeurg, after a nine years’ war, on the 20th September, 1697, between Louis XIV. and the confederate powers, called the Treaty of Ryswick. I mention this as a guide for strangers who may follow me, and who may not be fascinated as I was by my situation in the boat and content with the highly cultivated and embellished scenery around me. A man must be in bad humour with nature indeed, who can pass, in the summer, from Delft to the Hague without emotions of strong delight.

As we approached the Hague, the scenery became more refined and beautiful, and the last light of a setting sun purpled the lofty edifices of that celebrated city; it was quite dusk as we passed the water-houses, in which the royal yachts are contained, the rich gilded carving of which was just visible through the grated doors; and after gliding along the suburbs, which were well lighted though not in this respect comparable with London, I disembarked, bade adieu to my charming companions, and proceeded with my usual attendant, through the greater part of the city to the Mareschal de Turenne, an excellent hotel, but at a most inconvenient distance from the place where the Delft boats stop, and where those for Leyden or Haarlem start from.

The morning after my arrival there was a grand review of the Dutch troops, who presented a very soldierly appearance; that of the body-guard, both horse and infantry, was very superb in military appointments. I was well informed that the king felt so secure in his government, that there were not at this time twenty French soldiers in the country, and that, accompanied by his queen, he was attending to his health at the waters of Wisbaden, in the south of Germany. The French interest, however, was predominant, and it was indispensably necessary that the passport of every foreigner should be countersigned by the French consul, whose fiat upon all such occasions was final.

The king had been at the Hague, or rather at his palace in the wood adjoining, only about six weeks, in the course of which, I was credibly informed, he had displayed uncommon activity and talent in the discharge of the great duties of his station. Although an invalid, he was at his bureau with his ministers every morning at six o’clock, which he never quitted until the business of the day was completed. The poor-laws occupied much of his attention, and they are, I hear, to undergo a considerable amelioration. I have already mentioned his abolition of useless offices, sinecures, and unmerited pensions, the reduction of excessive salaries, and an extension of the time devoted to the service of the state in the public offices. These advantages could only be expected to flow from that vast power which revolutions, after their effervescence has subsided, generally deposit with some fortunate individual, who, if he has talent and good inclination, is enabled to consult the prosperity of a state, by measures at once prompt, summary, and efficacious, unretarded by forms, clashing interests, or hoary prejudices. The first of the new has ever this advantage over the last of an old dynasty.

The hereditary successor of a long line of princes is like the owner of an ancient mansion devolved to him by hereditary right; he must take the edifice as it is, with its commodious and inconvenient chambers, its fantastic turrets and heavy chimney-pieces, its dark and its cheerful passages; or if he alters, it must be with a cautious and gentle hand, otherwise the whole fabric will fall about his ears; whilst he who is elevated by revolutions to command, may choose his ground, build wholly with new, or partly with the old materials of the prostrate constitution.

In order to appreciate the present constitution, it may be necessary to take a slight review of the old one. Anterior to 1747 the United Provinces subsisted in one common confederacy, yet each province had an internal government or constitution, wholly independent of the others, called the States of such a Province, and its delegates the States General, in whom the supreme sovereignty of the whole confederacy was lodged; and notwithstanding the number of delegates which a province might send, yet in every constitutional measure each province had only one voice, and the sanction of every province, and of every city within it, was necessary before such a measure could pass into a law, and every resolution of the states of a particular province required unanimous adoption. The Council of State consisted also of deputies from the several provinces, but differed in its constitution from the States General; it was composed of twelve persons, of whom Holland sent three; Guelderland, two; Zealand, two; Utrecht, two; Friesland, one; Overyssel, one; and Groningen, one. Such deputies could only vote personally: it was their department to prepare estimates, and ways and means, &c. to be submitted to the States General. The states of the provinces, were styled “Noble and Mighty Lords;” those of Holland, “Noble and most Mighty Lords;” and the States General, “High and Mighty Lords,” or “the Lords of the States General of the United Netherlands,” or “their High Mightinesses.” Queen Elizabeth called them in her time Messieurs the States. The Chamber of Accounts, in which all the public accounts were audited, and composed of provincial deputies, was placed under these two bodies. The executive part of the Admiralty was committed to five colleges, in the three maritime provinces of Holland, Zealand and Friesland. In Holland the people were excluded from choosing their representatives or magistrates. In Amsterdam, which had precedence in all public deliberations, the magistracy was lodged in thirty-six senators chosen for life, and every vacancy filled up by the survivors, and the representatives for the cities in the province of Holland, were elected by the same senate.

Such a complicated piece of machinery must have proceeded slowly if it proceeded regularly, and must have been constantly exposed to the peril of being disordered, without a principal head to guide it, which led to the stadtholdership becoming hereditary in the year 1747. The wonderful and constant vicissitudes to which Holland has been exposed, rendered such an expedient, however, objectionable; it afterwards proved to be in many instances necessary to the preservation of the country. The history of the republic for 147 years, namely, from its first entering the field of battle in 1566 to the peace of Utrecht in 1713, is a tissue of battles lost and won. The twelve years’ truce which produced an hiatus in her many wars with Spain, did not extend to the Indian possessions of the Dutch; and after a prodigal effusion of blood, the peace obtained in 1648 lasted only four years. The first war with Great Britain continued to 1654; and scarcely had the republic tasted of the sweets of peace before she was roused to resist at the same time the arms of Portugal, Denmark, and Sweden; and in the North their hostilities continued till 1660, and in the South to 1661: then immediately followed a fierce contest with Great Britain, which did not close till the treaty at Breda in 1667, and the moment that was concluded, the country was invaded by Louis the Fourteenth.

A respite of three years followed, when the republic was unexpectedly attacked by the united forces of England and France, both on the sea and shore; and after a carnage of six years more, the peace of Nimeguen was concluded in 1678; which, however, was fettered with several severe stipulations imposed by the French monarch. In 1688 the Prince of Orange sailed for England, to occupy its vacant throne; an event which involved the Dutch in a nine years’ war: the peace of Ryswick was scarcely signed, when the Spanish succession again called them forth to arms, which they did not lay down till after a slaughter of eleven years.

The peace of Utrecht gave them a slight repose, which was frequently disturbed by the insults and predatory attacks of the African corsairs upon the Dutch flag in the Mediterranean. The internal troubles of the republic, from its revolution, and its final submission to the French arms followed. Such is the brief history of a country which, in a political and physical view, may be truly called extraordinary.

The first princes of the House of Orange, by the illustrious services which they rendered the state by their wars and negotiations, were rewarded by its confidence and employments of the highest dignity and trust, which were conferred upon them by the grateful approbation and concurrence of the most rigid republicans.

These princes, in obedience to that law of nature which seems to be pretty equally predominant amongst all her sons, extended the power they enjoyed as often as they had the means, and what they gave to themselves was taken from the liberties of the people; but they dazzled the eyes of the subject, and concealed the encroachment, or legitimated it by the brilliancy of illustrious achievements. A small territory, scooped from the ocean, rose to rank and estimation in the scale of nations, by its valour, its riches, and its arts, and was enabled to resist the mighty power of England and France, by the genius and energy of succession of five princes of the House of Orange, for upwards of a century.

The stadtholderate remained vacant from the death of William the Third, who by his talents preserved the republic from impending danger, till fresh difficulties, the wishes of the nation, and the powerful interposition of George the Second, in 1747, induced them to confer the dignity of stadtholder on William the Fourth, father of the last stadtholder, and to make it hereditary in his family. This prince (I mean the father) possessed considerable talents, from which the country did not derive much advantage, for he died soon after his elevation to the dignity. By this act the offices of captain-general and admiral-general were united in the person of the stadtholder, who also became president of every province; and his power and influence was such as to enable him to change every deputy, magistrate, and officer, in every province and city, at pleasure, by which he had the almost complete formation of the States General, although he had no voice in it.

CHAPTER VIII.
REMARKS ON THE LAST STADTHOLDER ... ALSO ON THE PRINCESS OF ORANGE ... HER PRESUMPTION AND INDISCRETION ... HATRED OF THE DUTCH TO THE HOUSE OF ORANGE ... FETE AT THE HAGUE ON THE FLIGHT OF THAT FAMILY ... REASONS ASSIGNED FOR THE PROGRESS OF THE FRENCH ARMS ... FOR THE GLORIOUS TRIUMPH OF BRITISH PROWESS ... CONDUCT OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT TOWARDS SOME OF THE SERVANTS OF THE OLD ... THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF HOLLAND.

The authority described in the last chapter, so princely and powerful, in all human probability would have continued in the family of the prince upon whom it was conferred to this hour, and descended to their posterity, had the last stadtholder possessed the virtue, spirit, and wisdom of his ancestors: but the imbecility of his character, more than those wonderful events which were agitating other portions of Europe, was the principal cause of the overthrow of his house. Without any portion of ability, William the Fifth was alive only to his own aggrandizement and depraved pleasures. The attachment which he had been taught to cherish for the politics of England, had long marked him out as an object of hatred with the Dutch: under his auspices they saw their own trade deteriorated, and the ocean covered with the commercial vessels of the British empire, wafting wealth into her ports from every quarter of the globe, the resources and energies of the republic consuming without any attempt to resuscitate them, until at length his weak and culpable conduct closed in the conquest of the country, and the precipitate retreat of himself and family. The conduct of the Princess of Orange also contributed not a little to augment the displeasure of the people. She had that influence over him which strong minds always have over weak ones, but in no instance were her counsels advantageous to the state, and she had no one quality to conciliate the lower classes of the people.

During the troubles of 1787, she created uncommon disgust by answering in her own name an address of the States General to the prince her husband, when she had no recognised character in the republic, and consequently no right whatever to interfere in its affairs. Amongst other acts of presumption in the same year, so memorable in the Dutch annals, when the Orange party, supported by Prussia, and Great Britain, acquired the ascendency, she managed the negotiations between the Duke of Brunswick, who commanded the Prussian army, and the city of Amsterdam, in the course of which she declared in a tone of angry insolence, that the generosity of her disposition induced her to spare the lives of the guilty, but that they should be held incapable of discharging the duties of any public trust in future. Among the persons whom she caused to be dismissed were several distinguished and popular citizens, the survivors of whom were, upon the overthrow of the house of Orange, called to participate in the government of the country with the most flattering marks of congratulation.

This princess I know has had her admirers, she has been extolled for her spirit, and capaciousness of mind; but upon almost every occasion her talents were misapplied, and only served to augment the storm that burst over and laid the glory of her house prostrate. What was to close a reign (if such it may be called), so characterized by weakness and disaster, required not the spirit of a prophet to foretel. The French revolution found an unembarrassed introduction into Holland, and the feeble resistance which the Dutch troops opposed to the French armies, pretty clearly demonstrates the estimation in which the country held its unworthy ruler, and the desire they had of delivering themselves from him and the influence of England upon their councils. It is well known, that in the last war, the Dutch refused the sick and wounded of their allies, the British army, admission into Delft, and a body of burghers was formed at Amsterdam, to prevent the entrance of foreign troops; in other words, the English, into that city. In his last struggles the Stadtholder obtained a plenary power, resembling that of a dictator, a short time before the French army crossed the Waal, an event that decided the fate of Holland. Aukwardly clothed with this vast authority, he issued a proclamation, invoking the people to rise en masse to oppose their invaders: in obedience to the invocation, the Dutch army was strengthened by the accession of about fifty recruits. An order then followed, that throughout the United Provinces three houses should furnish one man for the defence of the state, the order experienced a worse fate than the proclamation.

The public antipathy to the Stadtholder and his government was now raised to its highest elevation: the French entered the country in triumph, and the flight of the Prince of Orange was received with enthusiastic expressions of exultation. On the 16th of February, 1795, a solemn assembly of the deputies from all the provinces was held at the Hague, at which meeting the stadtholderate was formally declared to be abolished for ever, and in the evening of that day a grand republican festival was celebrated, at which the Dutch legislators, the French representatives, and the chiefs of the army assisted. When the British troops afterwards landed at the Helder, they found the sense of the people still the same. It was not the dread of the revenge of the French army, that induced them to observe such marked and unequivocal disinclination to co-operate with a force which professed to have in view the achievement of salutary objects for their benefit, but the unextinguishable abhorrence in which they held the house of Orange, in whose name the English army endeavoured to wrest the country from the arms of France; and, I believe, since the death of the son of the Stadtholder, a young prince of great promise, that throughout the kingdom scarcely one partizan for the house of Orange is to be found.

The fate of Holland is a memorable lesson to other nations. We wonder that the power of France rolls on with overwhelming fury: the military observer traces her resistless march to her brilliant improvements in modern warfare; the politician to the magnitude, energy, and endless reinforcements of her troops; the superstitious to her good fortune, and the moralist to the divine interposition to rebuke the vices of her enemies. They forget, or will not see, that the victories of France have hitherto been the triumph of genius, promptitude, and energy, over ignorance, procrastination, and supineness: of vigorous over weak councils; of able, experienced, and faithful, over hereditary, senseless, and perfidious commanders. These are the causes that made Austria bow her neck to the chief of the French empire, and in ten days offered up Prussia to the manes of Poland, in memorable expiation of the horrors perpetrated in that devoted country in 1771. In the glorious triumphs of the British flag upon the ocean, we saw great yielding to greater skill: in Egypt and Media we beheld indisputable heroism yielding to superior intrepidity, directed by great military skill, and united to high national honour.

The moderation and mildness which characterized the conduct of the French, rendered them popular by a comparison with the rigorous folly of the Stadtholder in the last convulsions of his expiring power. The French checked and kept in complete awe some of the most illiterate and most depraved of the Dutch republicans who were preparing to avenge the long and galling triumph of their adversaries, with sharp and sanguinary resentment; not a drop of blood was judicially shed upon the overthrow of the ancient government of the United Provinces, although it had endured for two centuries; and the pensioners of the house of Orange, whose stipends were the rewards of meritorious services, received, and continue to receive, their salaries with generous punctuality, without being obliged to take an oath of hatred to the Stadtholder, as other persons who lived by the bounty of the republic were obliged to do. After Bonaparte had assumed the imperial purple of France, and determined upon creating a dynasty of sovereigns in his own family, he prepared the Dutch for the conversion of their republic into a kingdom, and the reception of a king.

On the 9th of June, 1806, Messrs. Verhuel and Van Styrum returned from Paris. His Excellency M. Verhuel, after paying a visit to the acting pensionary, held conferences with the secretaries of state, and opened the special mission entrusted to him by his Imperial Highness Prince Louis Napoleon, as King of Holland, as the result of several resolutions for the organization of the government and communicating, that his majesty the king had appointed M. Verhuel minister of the marine, and M. Gogel, minister of finance; the other secretaries of state being charged to continue in their posts till the king’s arrival.

The same gentleman repaired in person to the assembly of their High Mightinesses, where also, in pursuance of his commission, he expressed his majesty’s desire, and made the necessary communications; he also proceeded to the council of state; after which his excellency assumed the executive power, in the name, and by the authority of his majesty, whilst the pensionary, who had acted ad interim, resigned that post, and resumed that of president of their High Mightinesses. The following is the new constitution which has been digested and promulgated for the Dutch nation. I have given it rather at length, that the reader may be in possession of the principal branches of so important and interesting a document.

Louis Napoleon, by the grace of God and the constitutional laws of the state, to all whom these presents shall come, sends greeting. Be it known to all, that we have accepted, and do accept, with the approbation of his majesty the Emperor Napoleon, our august brother, the dignity of King of Holland, conformably to the wishes of the country, the constitutional laws, and to the treaty which, being protected by reciprocal ratifications, has been this day presented to us by the deputies of the Dutch nation. Upon our accession to the throne, our dearest care shall be to watch over the interests of our people. We will always study to give them constant and multiplied proofs of our love and solicitude (supporting for those ends) the liberty of all our subjects, as well as their rights, and in employing ourselves incessantly for their welfare. The independence of the kingdom is guaranteed by his majesty the emperor and king. The constitutional laws, and our firm and resolute good will, equally secure to every one his credit with the state, his personal liberty, and the liberty of conscience. It is after this declaration that we have decreed, and do decree, by these presents, as follows:

Art. 1. Our ministers of marine and of finance, nominated by our decree of this day, shall enter immediately upon their office: the other ministers shall continue in theirs till further orders.

2. All the constituted authorities, either civil or military, shall continue their functions until further, or other, orders.

3. The constitutional laws of the state, and the treaty concluded at Paris the 24th of May, in the present year, between his majesty the emperor and king, and the Batavian Republic, the purport of which is here-in-aftermentioned, shall be published immediately, as well as the present decree, in the most authentic manner.

We therefore order, that these presents be published and posted up in all places where it is usual so to do; and enjoin all those whom it may concern, to provide for the exact performance of every thing contained in these presents.

Given at Paris, the 5th of June, 1806, in the first year of our reign.

(Signed) Louis.

(Underneath was written) on behalf of the king,

For the Secretary of State. (Signed) Verhuel,

The Minister of the Marine.