William Temple

“ The Towns stomached the breach of their Charters, the People of their Liberties, the Knights of the Golden-Fleece the Charters of their Order, by these new and odious Courts of Judicature; All complain of the disuse of the States, of the introduction of Armies, but all in vain: The King was constant to what he had determined; Alva was in his nature cruel and inexorable; the new Army was fierce and brave, and desirous of nothing so much as a Rebellion in the Country ”

“ And as England shews, in the beauty of the Country, what Nature can arrive at; so does Holland, in the number, greatness, and beauty of their Towns, whatever Art can bring to pass. But these and many other matters of Speculation among them, filling the Observations of all common Travellers, shall make no part of mine, whose design is rather to discover the Causes of their Trade and Riches, than to relate the Effects. ”

“ The fierce sharpness of these Winds makes the changes of their Weather and Seasons more violent and surprising, than in any place I know; so as a warm faint Air turns in a night to a sharp Frost, with the Wind coming into the North-East; And the contrary with another change of Wind. The Spring is much shorter, and less agreeable, than with us; the Winter much colder, and some parts of the Summer much hotter; and I have known more than once, the violence of one give way to that of the other, like the cold Fit of an Ague to the hot, without any good temper between. ”

“ A man that tells me, my Opinions are absurd or ridiculous, impertinent or unreasonable, because they differ from His, seems to intend a Quarrel instead of a Dispute; and calls me Fool, or Mad-man, with a little more circumstance; though, perhaps, I pass for one as well in my senses as he, as pertinent in talk, and as prudent in life: Yet these are the common Civilities, in Religious Argument, of sufficient and conceited men, who talk much of Right Reason, and mean always their own; and make their private imagination the measure of general Truth. ”

“ There has, I suppose, never been so great a manifestation of the power of sheer cruelty and of the determination to wreak upon a helpless people what is not vengeance, for there is no offence, but the satisfaction of a mere delight in power such as is to be witnessed on the continent of Europe at the present time. We are wisely advised not to limit our attention in this connexion to the sufferers of any one race, and we must remember that there are citizens of many countries who are subject to just the same kind of monstrous persecution, and even massacre. ”

“ I am not ignorant, that the vein of Reading never ran lower than in this Age; and seldom goes, further than the design of raising a Stock to furnish some Calling, or Conversation. The Desire of Knowledge being either laught out of doors by the Wit, that pleases the Age; or beaten out by Interest, that so much possesses it : And the amusement of Books giving way to the liberties or refinements of Pleasure, that were formerly less known, or less avowed, than now. ”

“ Most Authors have their le Fort and le Foible; but this Discourse of Monsieur de Cros is altogether made up of Foibles. For him to imagine that the great Senate of England has nothing else to do but to read his Books and be directed by them, is such a horrid piece of Vanity that nothing can parallel. ”

“ The long Civil-Wars, at first of France, then of Germany, and lastly of England, served to encrease the swarm in this Country, not only by such as were persecuted at home, but great numbers of peaceable Men, who came here to seek for quiet in their Lives, and safety in their Possessions or Trades; Like those Birds that upon the approach of a rough Winter-season, leave the Countrys where they were born and bred, flye away to some kinder and softer Climate, and never return till the Frosts are past, and the Winds are laid at home. ”

“ And so do many Sons of the rich Merchants, who, returning from travel abroad, have more designs upon their own pleasure, and the vanity of appearing, than upon the Service of their Country; Or, if they pretend to enter into that, it is rather by the Army than the State. And all these are generally desirous to see a Court in their Country, that they may value themselves at home, by the Qualities they have learnt abroad; and make a Figure, which agrees better with their own Humour, and the manner of Courts, than with the Customs and Orders, that prevail in more Popular Governments. ”

“ So great has the force of Reason and Interest ever proved in this State, not only to the uniting of all Voices in their Assemblies, but to the absolving of the greatest breach of their Original Constitutions; Even in a State, whose Safety and Greatness has been chiefly founded upon the severe and exact observance of Order and Method, in all their Counsels and Executions. ”

“ And whosoever designs the change of Religion in a Country, or Government, by any other means than that of a general conversion of the People, or the greatest part of them, designs all the Mischiefs to a Nation, that use to usher in, or attend, the two greatest Distempers of a State, Civil War, or Tyranny; Which are Violence, Oppression, Cruelty, Rapine, Intemperance, Injustice, and, in short, the miserable Effusion of Human Blood, and the Confusion of all Laws, Orders, and Virtues, among Men. ”

“ Or else, they must join with France to divide Flanders between them; But they knew what it was to share with the Lion: Or, they must joyn with Spain to defend Flanders against France, that is, with their old Enemy, against their old Friend: Or lastly, They must joyn with England for the defence of Flanders; Neither breaking with France, nor closing with Spain; and frame an Arbitrage, but of somthing a rough nature; rather prescribing than mediating a Peace, and threatning a War upon that Crown that refused it.
They chose the last, and wisely, as all men thought ”

“ Nor has this happen'd without good degrees of Success; though Kingdoms of such extent, that have other and Nobler Foundations of Greatness, cannot raise Trade to such a pitch as this little State, which had no other to build upon; no more than a Man, who has a fair and plentiful Estate, can fall to Labour and Industry, like one that has nothing else to trust to for the support of his Life. But however, all these Nations have come of late to share largely with them; and there seem to be grown too many Traders for Trade in the World, so as they can hardly live one by another. ”

“ After which, the most enflamed Spirits being driven by the Arms of Spain, or drawn by the hopes of Liberty and Safety, into the United Provinces out of the rest, the hatred of Spain grew to that heigth, that they were not only willing to submit to any new Dominion, rather than return to the old; but when they could find no Master to protect them, and their Affairs grew desperate, they were once certainly upon the Counsel of burning their great Towns, wasting and drowning what they could of their own Country, and going to seek some new Seats in the Indies. ”

“ I am very sensible, how ill a Trade it is to write, where much is ventur'd, and little can be gain'd; since, whoever does it ill is sure of contempt; and the justliest that can be, when no Man provokes him to discover his own follies, or to trouble the World, if he writes well, he raises the envy of those Wits that are possest of the Vogue, and are jealous of their Preferment there, as if it were in Love, or in State; And have found, that the nearest way to their own Reputation lies, right or wrong, by the derision of other Men. ”

“ Nor does any Man know, how much may have been contributed towards the great things in all kinds, both publick and private, that have been atchieved among them by this one Humour of never giving over what they imagine may be brought to pass, nor leaving one scent to follow another they meet with; Which is the property of the lighter and more ingenious Nations; And the Humour of a Government being usually the same with that of the persons that compose it, not only in this, but in all other points; so as, where Men that govern, are Wise, Good, Steddy and Just, the Government will appear so too ”

“ Nor could I ever understand, how those, who call themselves, and the World usually calls, Religious Men, come to put so great weight upon those Points of Belief which Men never have agreed in, and so little upon those of Virtue and Morality, in which they have hardly ever disagreed. Nor, why a State should venture the Subversion of their Peace, and their Order, which are certain Goods, and so universally esteemed, for the propagation of uncertain or contested Opinions. ”

“ We ought, in any words of criticism that we utter, to have the utmost sympathy for the Government in their task of administration, but we wish to offer our support not merely to show that it may be relied upon—for the Government I am sure know that—but also as a spur to greater rapidity to action if it may be possible. It is the delays in the whole matter while these horrors go on daily that make some of us wonder whether it may not be possible to speed things up a little. ”

“ Nay, continues the sweet-tempered Monsieur de Cross, I will not express the least Passion, no, not so much as against Sir W. T. but will do him the kindness to instruct him in abundance of things, which he poor Man has executed without knowing the true Reason why he was set on to do them. ”

“ And the Ambition of one Man could neither have designed or atchieved so great an Adventure, had it not been seconded with universal Discontent: Nor could that have been raised to so great an heighth and heat, without so many circumstances as fell in from an unhappy course of the Spanish Counsels, to kindle and foment it. For though it had been hard to Head such a Body, and give it so strong a Principle of Life, and so regular Motions, without the accident of so great a Governour in the Provinces, as Prince William of Orange; A Man of equal Abilities in Council and in Arms ”

“ Nor will it at all derogate from the Honour of a Religion, to have been planted in a Country, by Secular means, or Civil Revolutions, which have, long since, succeeded to those Miraculous Operations that made way for Christianity in the World. 'Tis enough, that God Almighty infuses belief into the Hearts of Men, or else, ordains it to grow out of Religious Enquiries and Instructions; And that wherever the generality of a Nation come by these means to be of a belief, it is by the force of this concurrence introduced into the Government, and becomes the establisht Religion of That Country. ”

“ The vulgar mistake, That Importation of Foreign Wares, if purchased abroad with Native Commodities, and not with Money, does not make a Nation poorer, is but what every Man, that gives himself leisure to think, must immediately rectifie, by finding out, that, upon the end of an Account between a Nation, and all they deal with abroad, whatever the Exportation wants in value, to balance that of the Importation, must of necessity be made up with ready Money.
By this we find out the Foundation of the Riches of Holland, as of their Trade by the Circumstances already rehearsed. ”

“ Can it be imagined that a Man of Monsieur de Cros's Christian Temper and Complexion will ever be accessary to any Man's Ruine, but especially to that of a great Minister of State, who can be reproached with nothing in the World, p. 12. but only a blind Obedience to the Will of the King his Master? No, no, he is far from pursuing the Destruction of any one, tho' never so great an Enemy to him; and therefore since his Memoirs will most infallibly ('tis his own Expression, ibid) produce so tragical an effect, there's no Question but he may be easily prevailed with to suppress them. ”

“ For Nature cannot hold out with constant labour of Body, and as little with constant bent, or application, of Mind: Much motion of the same parts of the Brain either wearies and wasts them too fast for repair, or else (as it were) fires the wheels, and so ends, either in general decays of the Body, or distractions of the Mind (For these are usually occasion'd by perpetual motions of Thought about some one Object; whether it be about ones self in excesses of Pride, or about another in those of Love, or of Grief.) ”

“ We can trust the discretion of our own agents in these neutral countries to allow only those who could safely be permitted to pass through to our own shores to do so, and it is of the greatest importance to give relief to those neutral countries because there is at present a steady stream, or perhaps more accurately a steady trickle of refugees from France both into Spain and into Switzerland. The numbers that those countries, already suffering a good deal in shortage of food and with their standard of life so far below our own, will be able to receive are of course limited. ”

“ Their great Rivers, that were esteemed an invincible security to the Provinces of Holland and Utrecht, passed with as much ease, and as small resistances, as little Fords: And in short, the very hearts of a Nation so valiant of old, against Rome, so obstinate against Spain, now subdued, and, in a manner, abandoning all before their Danger appeared: We may justly have our recourse to the secret and fixed periods of all Human Greatness, for the account of such a Revolution: Or rather, to the unsearchable Decrees, and unresistable force, of Divine Providence ”