[821] See hereinafter, pt. vi, ch. ii, § 5.
[822] Davies, ii, 721; Van Kampen, ii, 149. Cp. Temple, Essay upon the Advancement of Trade in Ireland, Works, iii, 15, 16.
[823] Mémoires de Jean De Witt, ptie. ii, ch. ii, iii (iii, iv). It is there noted (ch. ii, p. 113) that when in time of war the States-General gave letters of marque to privateers there were always bitter complaints that the Dutch privateers took Dutch goods as well as the enemy's. Again it is asked (p. 163), "What plunder is there for us to gain at sea when we are almost the only traffickers?"
[824] It is to be noted that De Witt diverged fatally from the doctrine of his friend Delacourt in thus leaning to foreign alliances, which Delacourt altogether opposed. See Lefèvre Pontalis, Jean De Witt, 1884, i, 317-18, where an interesting account of the Mémoires is given.
[825] Davies, iii, 68, 69; Rogers, Holland, p. 266. Temple was of course the unconscious instrument of the treachery of Charles. Cp. Lefèvre Pontalis, Jean De Witt, i, 451-55.
[826] See the Declaration and the Dutch reply, printed in 1674, reprinted in The Phœnix, 1707, i, 271 sq.
[827] Cp. Child, New Discourse of Trade, 4th ed. pref. pp. xx-xxv; Tucker, Essay on Trade, 4th ed. pp. 28, 47-57.
[828] Cp. Grattan, p. 75.
[829] "Never any country traded so much and consumed so little; they buy infinitely, but it is to sell again." "They furnish infinite luxury, which they never practise, and traffic in pleasures which they never taste" (Temple, Observations, 1814 ed. of Works, i, 176). Cp. Motley, United Netherlands, iv, 559. Sometimes the citizens were taxed fifty per cent on their incomes.
[830] M'Culloch's dictum that the low rate of interest in Holland was wholly due to heavy taxation is an evident fallacy, framed in the interest of laissez-faire.