able, had manned eight hundred ships of
war and trade. It had used them to seize the remnants of Portuguese
power upon the shores of Guinea, as well as in Brazil.

The United Provinces had thus become the warehouse wherein were
collected the products of all nations.

The colonies of the Dutch at this time were scattered throughout the
eastern seas, in India, in Malacca, in Java, the Moluccas, and various
parts of the vast archipelago lying to the northward of Australia.
They had possessions on the west coast of Africa, and as yet the
colony of New Amsterdam remained in their hands. In South America the
Dutch West India Company had owned nearly three hundred leagues of
coast from Bahia in Brazil northward; but much had recently escaped
from their hands.

The United Provinces owed their consideration and power to their
wealth and their fleets. The sea, which beats like an inveterate enemy
against their shores, had been subdued and made a useful servant; the
land was to prove their destruction. A long and fierce strife had been
maintained with an enemy more cruel than the sea,--the Spanish
kingdom; the successful ending, with its delusive promise of rest and
peace, but sounded the knell of the Dutch Republic. So long as the
power of Spain remained unimpaired, or at least great enough to keep
up the terror that she had long inspired, it was to the interest of
England and of France, both sufferers from Spanish menace and
intrigue, that the United Provinces should be strong and independent.
When Spain fell,--and repeated humiliations showed that her weakness
was real and not seeming,--other motives took the place of fear.
England coveted Holland's trade and sea dominion; France desired the
Spanish Netherlands. The United Provinces had reason to oppose the
latter as well as the former.

Under the combined assaults of the two rival nations, the intrinsic
weakness of the United Provinces was soon to be felt and seen. Open to
attack by the land, few in numbers, and with a government ill adapted
to put forth the united strength of a people, above all unfitted to
keep up adequate preparation for war, the decline of the republic and
the nation was to be more striking and rapid than the rise. As yet,
however, in 1660, no indications of the coming fall were remarked. The
republic was still in the front rank of the great powers of Europe.
If, in 1654, the war with England had shown a state of unreadiness
wonderful in a navy that h