competition for this trade of freightage. They had succeeded to the Hanseatic traders of the middle ages in the uncommon parsimony and industry of their race, which made them contented with smaller profits than other nations, and able therefore to outbid them in the cheapness of freights. As they had acquired all that they strove for by arms, and had little more which they could hope to acquire by war, and the size of their country excluded them from playing a great part in Europe, the acquisition of wealth, and the enjoyment of the profit arising from the dissensions of their larger neighbours, seemed to be the part which they were henceforth destined and fitted to play in Europe. The Regency therefore of Holland, under its great minister De Witt, laboured with all its might for the attainment of the two objects which I have described. Now the first object (viz., to secure the same advantages of freightage for Dutch subjects as for the natives of
