Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/66

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54
TOUR THROUGH

men, deters persons of respectability and character from seeking to fill the civil employments of the town.

The mischiefs that might have resulted from power being lodged in the hands of such men, have been greatly prevented by the circumstance, that the majority — a large majority — of the inhabitants of Rotterdam retain a strong partiality for the ancient system of government, and the connection with England. When the marigold, because its colour is the symbol of the house of Orange, was extirpated from the gardens of the patriots, the windows of that quarter of the town where the poor principally reside were filled with pots of that flower; and a plant which a pious age had consecrated to the Virgin, expressed the lively affection of its possessor for an exiled stadtholder of Holland. The red and white roses of the factions of York and Lancaster will perhaps account for the esteem in which the marigold is held by the partisans of the house of Orange, but why would the elegant fruit that bears the name of that family be exiled from the tables