trade with foreign parts by the means of neutral vessels. The immense number of dismantled ships with which the harbour is crowded bespeaks the former commercial prosperity of Amsterdam, and its present impoverished state. The greater part of the ships are in the worst condition imaginable, and would, were peace to bid the commerce of Holland revive, be found unfit for the purposes of navigation. I perceived that the small vessels were generally in a more disabled and decayed condition than the large ones; probably from the circumstance that their owners, persons in the middle walks of life, had suffered more by the war than the wealthier classes concerned, in shipping, and consequently were unable to be at sufficient expence for the preservation of their property.
At an early period of the revolution, the circumstances of the Dutch East-India Company, the greatest commercial institution in the United Provinces, underwent a rigorous investigation. The stadtholder, by virtue of an agreement made in 1787, was governor
