by Richard Heath

“ Amsterdam was governed by a senate of thirty-six burghers. Each senator enjoyed his position for life, originally by election of the freemen of the city; but from the sixteenth century the vacancies were filled up by the Senate itself or by some authority for the time being more powerful. Thus the government of Amsterdam was a close oligarchy. Had it continued as it was up to the end of the war of independence — Catholic — it would in all probability have rivalled that of Venice, in a rule of mystery and terror. One of the most picturesque objects in Amsterdam was the Herring-packers' Tower. ”

“ Nowhere on earth has religious liberty longer prevailed, nor the pulpit received more honor than in Amsterdam; but we may look in vain for a man touched with the spirit of the prophets of the Italian republics, men of the mould of Francis and Savonarola. ”

“ For, owing to the accumulation of capital and the way taxation ate up profits, the Amsterdam merchants put the greater part of their surplus capital into foreign stocks. In fact, the difficulty of finding an advantageous return for money in Holland was so great, that its capitalists preferred to lend vast sums of money to individuals in foreign countries, both regularly as loans at interest and in the shape of goods advanced at long credit.
The result of such an order of things became more and more manifest: the commerce which enriched the few, ruined the many. ”

“ A thousand vessels were employed in the Baltic trade in timber and grain, and Amsterdam in a short time became the granary of the world. Sir Walter Raleigh, in his "Observations touching Trade and Commerce with the Hollander," says "Amsterdam is never without seven hundred thousand quarters of corn, none of it the growth of Holland; a dearth of only one year in any other part of Europe enriches Holland for seven years." ”

“ To render the working of this great commerce more facile, the Bank of Amsterdam was founded in 1609. In a short time the whole world went to Amsterdam to borrow.
Speculative trade, it has been said, almost seems to have been born at Amsterdam. Let the scarcity of grain be what it might in any of the four quarters of the globe, men could always find plenty in Amsterdam; whatever their wants, they could always supply them in Amsterdam. ”

“ For a caustic glance at the present religious life of Amsterdam, we commend our readers to a humorous description of a modern Sunday evening service in one of its churches, a comfortable building, where a few scattered groups of respectable persons were found reclining on well-padded seats covered with velvet, and enlightened by two gas-burners apiece, while they listened to an admirable discourse from the text, "Godliness is profitable for the life that now is." ”

“ In 1782 the Whigs came into power, but although it had ever been a maxim of their policy to cultivate the Dutch alliance, they could not refrain from pressing to the utmost the prostrate representatives of a rival commerce, refusing to restore the places taken from the Dutch during the war, or to grant any compensation for their losses. And their ally, France, signed the preliminaries of peace without the sanction or knowledge of the United Provinces. On being remonstrated with, the French ambassador replied: "Each power must study its own interests, and those of France require peace." ”

“ That the Dutch people had not lost their ancient patriotism was soon manifest, for when Louis XIV., misled by the ease of his triumph, demanded outrageous terms, the people rose, took the power out of the hands of oligarchical factions who ruled in the States-General, and virtually made the Prince of Orange dictator. Under this influence Amsterdam displayed an unwonted heroism, and her people declared that rather than submit to the conqueror they would cut the dykes and lay all the land round the city under water. ”

“ No one, not even those who suffer most, ever rightly estimates the discontent which exists in any society founded upon injustice. Luther himself, though by birth a man of the people, had no conception of its extent in his own Germany. Thus notwithstanding the rout of the peasantry at Frankenhausen, the Anabaptist movement went on in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and above all in the Netherlands. Jan Trypmacker, its leader in the Netherlands, in 1530, had a great following in Amsterdam, and was there arrested, sent to the Hague, and beheaded. ”

“ From the obscure background of mediæval history we behold emerge, like the phantasms of half-finished dreams, scenes in which a portion is photographed more vividly than anything we see when awake, but of which we know not the beginning, and which ends as abruptly as it began. ”

“ To prevent any criticism from the jealousy of the other Dutch ports, the East India Company distributed their stock among the principal towns of the United Provinces, in each of which was a handsomely paid board of directors, possessing the share of the patronage proportioned to the stock they held. Amsterdam kept the supreme direction, for out of these subordinate chambers a board of seventeen directors was chosen, who met for six years at Amsterdam and two at Middleburgh. Thus all the leading capitalists in Holland were directly concerned in the company's affairs. ”

“ Every great change in Europe vibrated through the homes of Amsterdam. When the empire began to fall the French inhabitants left the city in droves, the houses of those who sympathized with them were sacked, and the prisons forced open. ”

“ Here a crowd of men, the most varied in nationality and tradition, were all one in their worship of the presiding genius of the city. The bridge stood in front of its temple. The Exchange was the true centre of the religion of Amsterdam. ”

“ Converted to the Christian faith by missionaries of their own race from England and France, the precious seed was kept alive, and in the thirteenth century still more freely sown by the institutions of the Beguines and Beghards, by the Lollards and the Franciscans, and by the Brothers of the Common Lot. These societies, mystical and communistic, sprang from the people, sympathized with the poor, prayed with them, preached to them, nursed them when sick, and taught their children. ”

“ The cause of the heavy taxation was the necessity of maintaining a great navy to protect the monopolies of the Dutch capitalists, and to pay the interest of the ever-increasing debt, brought about by the disastrous wars into which the United Provinces were forced by the jealousy and cupidity they provoked in their neighbors. ”

“ When the end came, many of its traders, and even its literary men, fled to Amsterdam.
The population, in fact, increased so fast that strangers arriving were obliged to take up their abode in the environs in huts and other temporary erections, while new streets were laid out and houses built. Land in the city rose to a preposterous value: as much as a man's foot would cover was said to be worth a ducat of gold. In 1618 the population was estimated at three hundred thousand.
Each city in the United Provinces had its particular branch of trade. ”

“ Instead of taking that moral position in Europe to which she was called, and which would certainly have been hers had she not listened to the tempter's voice, Amsterdam chose material wealth, and sought to be the commercial metropolis of the earth, rather than a city from whence the laws of justice and truth should go forth to the nations. ”

“ IV. If the Hollander had one tradition more powerful than another, it was patriotism. Yet even this great duty the merchant of Amsterdam was ready to sacrifice on the altar of commerce. On one occasion the stadtholder discovered that the Amsterdam traders were sending arms and ammunition to Antwerp, at the very time it was being besieged by the combined forces of Holland and France. He demanded an inquiry, and one Beyland was charged before the magistrates of Amsterdam with freighting four boats full of powder, muskets, and pikes. ”

“ Supported further by the finest navy in the world — for it is estimated that in the seventeenth century half the shipping of Europe belonged to the Dutch — Amsterdam, with its correspondents every-where, quickly obtained the carrying trade of the world. ”

“ They have all that heart could wish, and if there is any desire, the means are there to obtain its gratification. And nothing proves how sweet this life was to those who enjoyed it as the fact that so many masters found it to their profit to follow in the wake of Dou. On the other hand, Rembrandt — who painted the poor as they really were, sad-eyed and dirty, sufferers even when truculent-looking and sullen — had no followers. The rich did not care about these reminders of an ugly fact. ”

“ V. Governments built on the predominance of a class are only safe as long as they are successful. The people of the northern Netherlands were as ready in the eighteenth century to accept the doctrines of the French Revolution as their ancestors had been to receive those of the Anabaptists. The committees formed to organize a national insurrection found a popular response beyond their expectation. Amsterdam was the focus of the revolution. ”

“ If this be a fair computation, then it would follow that, at the very time Amsterdam was making its most rapid strides in prosperity, at least one-sixth of its inhabitants were in a state of pauperism, and this we know means also a still wider circle of families on the brink of poverty and living in daily dread of being swallowed into its vortex. ”

“ The Amsterdammers of the seventeenth century were benevolent, cultured, religious, but their consciences were not wounded by this singular distribution of wealth. How should they be when the religion which they professed had for its distinctive tenet the doctrine that God had chosen an elect few to eternal felicity, while the great majority of mankind were under sentence of eternal reprobation? ”

“ Not content with doing it this harm, Louis XIV. in 1672 invaded Holland. A great drought favored his enterprise, so that the French armies easily forded the rivers, and the Dutch cities capitulated without a blow. As Sir William Temple says, in his curious little book, "Observations on the United Provinces, 1693," "In all sieges the hearts of men defend the walls, and not the walls the men." ”

“ In I780England issued a declaration of war against the United Provinces, and after naming a number of causes of offence, the document concluded with a last and chief article against the burghers of Amsterdam. Instead of taking active measures, the Dutch squandered their time in internal disputes. Supineness and inactivity pervaded every department. A bounty of seventy guilders a head was offered for men, but men were not forthcoming. The powers supposed to be friendly made no effort to save the Dutch. ”

“ It is in the highest degree improbable it will regain the place it once held in Europe; there are signs that as a wealth-making community Amsterdam is slowly but steadily sinking. While Bremerhafen and Antwerp are rapidly gaining ground commercially, Amsterdam lags behind. The slow rate at which the Dutch network of railways is being completed and the water-ways improved, is said to be the cause. ”

“ If they had pictures of poverty, then tavern interiors, such as Ostade, Teniers, and Jan Steen painted, were the ones most in request — pictures that represented men as bringing it on themselves by vicious and disgusting bestiality. ”

“ There were taxes on butter, fish, and fruit, while the duties levied on meat, salt, beer, wine, and spirits were as high as one hundred per cent. Rents paid a tax of twenty-five per cent.; in fact, there was scarcely anything that escaped taxation except that which depleted the country of its capital — the speculations of its merchants in the public funds of other nations. ”

“ The accused not only freely admitted the charge but declared that the merchant of Amsterdam had a right to trade wherever he pleased; adding that if anything was to be gained by trading to hell, he would risk burning his sails. And the magistrates acquitted him on the ground that he had done his duty to his employers. ”

“ Yet such was the individual wealth still possessed by Dutch capitalists, that in the midst of all these disasters they were able to lend the king of Prussia five millions of guilders, and to buy two millions of acres of land of the American Congress for three million seven hundred and fifty thousand guilders. ”

“ These trades were the peculiar monopoly of Amsterdam, but she was also greatly advantaged by the general prosperity of the whole province of Holland. On its pastures grazed innumerable herds of fine cattle a Dutch ox would often weigh more than two thousand pounds, and Dutch cows were known to produce two or three calves at a time, Dutch sheep four or five lambs. ”

“ After this the Catholic religion was itself proscribed, and Amsterdam became not only Protestant, but Protestant of an ultra type. These facts make it evident that the Amsterdam of the sixteenth century contained a population mostly Protestant, and largely Anabaptist, with a ruling class thoroughly Catholic. ”