"With this imperfect statement of the physical characteristics, as a basis for your observation, I leave the subject to say a few words about the government and history of the country.
"William III. is the present king of the Netherlands. He is forty-seven years old, and is a lineal descendant of William of Orange, and a grandson, on the mother's side, of Czar Paul I. of Russia. He has a salary, or civil list, of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, which is pretty fair pay for ruling over a kingdom about the size of the State of Maryland, or of Massachusetts and Connecticut united, and containing a population about equal to that of the State of New York.
"The government is a limited monarchy, the whole legislative power being vested in the two chambers called the States General. The First Chamber consists of thirty-nine members, elected by provincial councils, from those inhabitants who pay the highest grade of taxes. The Second Chamber contains seventy-two members, elected by general ballot; but only those who pay taxes to the amount of fifty dollars a year are voters. All measures appropriating money for any purpose must originate in the Second Chamber, which is the popular body, and become laws only when assented to by the sovereign and the First Chamber. The king executes the laws with the aid of seven ministers, who receive a salary of five thousand dollars a year.
"Free toleration is allowed to all religious sects. Protestants are largely in the majority, the proportion being as twenty to twelve. Education is generally diffused among the people. In 1863 the revenue of the Netherlands amounted to forty-one millions of dollars. The Dutch have extensive colonial possessions in the East and West Indies, and on the west coast of Africa. The regular home army contains fifty-nine thousand officers and men. Its navy consists of fifty-eight steamers and eighty-one sailing vessels.
"I do not think you will be likely to realize the poetic ideal of the Dutchmen, young gentlemen. Though they drink a great deal of beer and Schiedam schnapps, you will seldom find them intoxicated; and I have never been able to see that they smoke any more than the people of our own country. They are not necessarily fat and clumsy. The men are of medium stature, in no special degree distinguished from other people in Europe and America. The women are very domestic, and very cleanly in their persons and in their dwellings. The Dutch people are prudent, economical, beforehanded.
"In the brief sketch I gave you at Antwerp of the history of the Netherlands, that of Holland was included up to the period of the murder of the Prince of Orange, which occurred in 1584, while he was Stadtholder of the Seven United Provinces. At his death, his son, Prince Maurice, was elected Stadtholder in his father's place. He was then only seventeen years of age, but he proved to be a young man of great military ability, and commenced a glorious career, which ended only with his life, in 1625. With the bright example of Prince Maurice before them, I think our young captains of his age may be encouraged."
This remark "brought down the house," and more than fifty of the students glanced at Paul Kendall, whose "improbable" achievements in the Josephine were the admiration of everybody in the squadron, except Professor Hamblin.
"Philip II. died in 1598, and his successor continued his efforts to conquer the Dutch, but without success. By this time Holland had created the most powerful navy in the world, and with her seventy thousand seamen swept the commerce of the Spaniards from the seas, even in the remotest waters of the globe. The galleons and treasure ships from the colonies of Spain were captured, and their rich booty poured into the exchequer of the Dutch. The monarch of Castile was almost impoverished by these losses; and, deprived of the means to carry on the war of subjugation, he agreed, in 1609, to a truce of twelve years.
"Religious dissensions then broke out in Holland, which soon assumed a political turn. The Stadtholder, Prince Maurice, was ambitious to become the hereditary sovereign of Holland, in which he was opposed by Barneveldt, a venerable judge, aided by De Groot, or Grotius, a noted Dutch scholar and statesman. The opposition were styled 'remonstrants.' The judge was charged with a plot to hand his country over to the tyranny of Spain; and though he was a pure patriot, he was condemned and executed. Grotius, by an expedient which would have been deemed improbable in a novel, escaped from the Castle of Loevestein.
"At the expiration of the truce, Spain renewed her efforts to conquer Holland; but, after a war of twenty-seven years, the independence of the country was acknowledged in the peace of Westphalia. During this period the Dutch maintained their supremacy on the sea, attacking the Spanish possessions in all parts of the world, and especially in the East Indies, where they commenced the foundation of their empire in that part of the globe.