any of domestic despotism.

CHAPTER XVIII

TO THE TREATY OF MUNSTER

A.D. 1625--1648

Frederick Henry succeeded to almost all his brother's titles and
employments, and found his new dignities clogged with an accumulation
of difficulties sufficient to appall the most determined spirit.
Everything seemed to justify alarm and despondency. If the affairs
of the republic in India wore an aspect of prosperity, those in
Europe presented a picture of past disaster and approaching peril.
Disunion and discontent, an almost insupportable weight of taxation,
and the disputes of which it was the fruitful source, formed
the subjects of internal ill. Abroad was to be seen navigation
harassed and trammelled by the pirates of Dunkirk; and the almost
defenceless frontiers of the republic exposed to the irruptions
of the enemy. The king of Denmark, who endeavored to make head
against the imperialist and Spanish forces, was beaten by Tilly,
and made to tremble for the safety of his own States. England did
nothing toward the common cause of Protestantism, in consequence
of the weakness of the monarch; and civil dissensions for a while
disabled France from resuming the system of Henry IV. for humbling
the House of Austria.

Frederick Henry was at this period in his forty-second year.
His military reputation was well established; he soon proved his
political talents. He commenced his career by a total change in
the tone of government on the subject of sectarian differences.
He exercised several acts of clemency in favor of the imprisoned
and exiled Arminians, at the same time that he upheld the dominant
religion. By these measures he conciliated all parties; and by
degrees the fierce spirit of intolerance became subdued. The foreign
relations of the United Provinces now presented the anomalous
policy of a fleet furnished by the French king, manned by rigid
Calvinists, and commanded by a grandson of Admiral Coligny, for
the purpose of combating the remainder of the French Huguenots,
whom they considered as brothers in religion, though political
foes; and during the joint expedition which was undertaken by the
allied French and Dutch troops against Rochelle, the stronghold
of Protestantism, the preachers of Holland put up prayers for the
protection of those whom their army was marching to destroy. The
states-general, ashamed of this unpopular union, recalled their
fleet, after some severe fighting with that of the Huguenots.
Card