Twenty-three years after the landing of the pilgrims, the population of New England had grown to twenty-four thousand. Forty-nine little wooden towns, with their wooden churches, wooden forts and wooden ramparts, were dotted here and there over the land. There were then four separate colonies: Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Haven. For mutual defense and protection these colonies united together and thus formed the first confederation of states on the western continent.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CONFLICT IN THE NETHERLANDS.
DESCRIPTION OF HOLLAND—A LAND OF REFUGE—TYRANNY OF ALVA—THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE—SIEGE OF LEYDEN—THE COUNTRY SUBMERGED—FAMINE IN THE CITY—SPEECH OF THE MAYOR—HEROIC CONDUCT—TRUST IN GOD—STORM RAISES THE WATERS—SPANIARDS RETREAT—LEYDEN IS SAVED—THANKSGIVING—WATERS RETIRE.
In a previous chapter have been described the circumstances which led to the colonization of Acadia and New England.
While these events were transpiring in old England and New England, others of scarcely less importance were occurring in Holland, or the Netherlands, as it is frequently called, and in its colony of New Netherlands. It is a fact too frequently forgotten, that at least three of the thirteen original states were colonized by Holland. It is true Pennsylvania and Delaware received a few colonists from Sweden and Finland, who had settled there to escape religious persecution; but their dominions in the new world were not of long duration. To Holland and England belong the chief glory of colonizing the lands embraced in the United Colonies of 1776. The country now embraced in the states of New York, New Jersey and Delaware, received the name of New Netherlands, and like the inhabitants of New England, they were for the most part a religious people.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Holland had been the refuge of exiles from many lands. When John Huss and Jerome of Prague fell under papal vengeance, many of their followers there found a home. When the fury of persecution was raging against the Waldenses, many of them fled to Holland for protection. After the terrible massacre of the French protestants or Huguenots, as they were called, in 1572, many of them took refuge in the Netherlands. This liberty-loving population was the cause of that deadly hatred manifested toward them by the Duke of Alva. This insatiate monster, during his brief administration, caused more than eighteen thousand persons to perish by the hand of the executioner. His cruelties at length aroused the indignation of the people, and brought about those notable events so well described by the historian, Motley, in his Rise of the Dutch Republic. This contest was one of the most memorable in the history of the human race, for in it was clearly shown the wonderful providence of God.
Holland, as is well known, is a low, flat country, so low, in fact, that the inhabitants have been obliged to build dykes, or embankments of earth, along the coast, in order to protect the country from the waters of the ocean during high tides and storms. Were it not for this precaution, Holland would frequently present the appearance of a vast, shallow bay or lake, thickly studded with orchards dwellings and cities half submerged in the water.
At this time Holland was under the dominion of Spain. The tyranny of Alva, the governor, provoked the people to resistance, and King Philip sent an army from Spain to enforce submission. Rather than longer endure this oppression, the brave Hollanders resolved to achieve their independence or perish in the attempt. The fortifications of their country were few, but, in one respect, they held the keys of the ocean. They opened the flood-gates of the dykes and prepared to submerge the country when the first storm should come. Meanwhile the Spaniards were besieging Leyden, and if that city fell, the conquest of the country would inevitably follow. The Hollanders well knew that the ocean would damage their fields and destroy their growing crops, but they preferred the chances of starvation to an indiscriminate massacre.