their Neighbours, viz. because they can afford a particular sort of Vessels for each particular Trade.
I have shewn how Situation hath given them Shipping, and how Shipping hath given them in effect all other |[21]| Trade, and how Foreign Traffick must give them as much Manufacture as they can manage themselves, and as for the overplus, make the rest of the World but as Workmen to their Shops. It now remains to shew the effects of their The Policy of Holland. Policy, superstructed upon these natural advantages, and not as some think upon the excess of their Understandings.
I have omitted to mention the Hollanders were one hundred years since, a poor and oppressed People, living in a Country naturally cold[1] and unpleasant: and were withal persecuted for their Heterodoxy in Religion.
From hence it necessarily follows, that this People must Labour hard, and set all hands to Work: Rich and Poor, Young and Old, must study the Art of Number, Weight, and Measure; must fare hard, provide for Impotents, and for Orphans, out of hope to make profit by their Labours: must punish the Lazy by Labour, and not by cripling them[2]: I say, all these particulars, said to be the subtile excogitations of the Hollanders, seem to me, but what could not almost have been otherwise. |[22]|
Liberty of Conscience, Registry of Conveyances, small Customs, Banks, Lumbards, and Law Merchant, rise all from the same Spring, and tend to the same Sea; as for lowness of Interest, it is also a necessary effect of all the premisses, and not the Fruit of their contrivance.
Wherefore we shall only shew in particular the efficacy of each, and first of Liberty of Conscience; but before I enter upon these, I shall mention a Practice almost forgotten, (whether it referreth to Trade or Policy is not material,) which is, the Hollanders undermasting, and sailing such of Undermasting of Ships.their Shipping, as carry cheap and gross Goods, and whose Sale doth not depend much upon Season.
it is to be noted, that of two equal and like Vessels, if