ses of the state, taxes were raised on every
material. They produced about thirty million florins a year,
independent of five million each for the East and West India
companies. The population in 1620, in Holland, was about six
hundred thousand, and the other provinces contained about the
same number.

It is singular to observe the fertile erections of monopoly in
a state founded on principles of commercial freedom. The East
and West India companies, the Greenland company, and others,
were successively formed. By the effect of their enterprise,
industry and wealth, conquests were made and colonies founded
with surprising rapidity. The town of Amsterdam, now New York,
was founded in 1624; and the East saw Batavia rise up from the
ruins of Jacatra, which was sacked and razed by the Dutch
adventurers.

The Dutch and English East India companies, repressing their
mutual jealousy, formed a species of partnership in 1619 for the
reciprocal enjoyment of the rights of commerce. But four years
later than this date an event took place so fatal to national
confidence that its impressions are scarcely yet effaced--this
was the torturing and execution of several Englishmen in the
island of Amboyna, on pretence of an unproved plot, of which every
probability leads to the belief that they were wholly innocent. This
circumstance was the strongest stimulant to the hatred so evident
in the bloody wars which not long afterward took place between
the two nations; and the lapse of two centuries has not entirely
effaced its effects. Much has been at various periods written
for and against the establishment of monopolizing companies,
by which individual wealth and skill are excluded from their
chances of reward. With reference to those of Holland at this
period of its history, it is sufficient to remark that the great
results of their formation could never have been brought about
by isolated enterprises; and the justice or wisdom of their
continuance are questions wholly dependent on the fluctuations
in trade, and the effects produced on that of any given country
by the progress and the rivalry of others.

With respect to the state of manners in the republic, it is clear
that the jealousies and emulation of commerce were not likely
to lessen the vice of avarice with which the natives have been
reproached. The following is a strong expression of one, who cannot,
however, be considered an unprejudiced observer, on occasion of
some disput