Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/540

632 DUTCH MISSIONS TO ENGLAND IN 16S9 October before ; in general the Dutch should rather give way to small injustices than fight about them, but if the English obstinately refuse to do right, then there must be war. One thing might, however, make a great difference : if it were possible, it would be best to have * a free trade, and fruit of our work, on reasonable conditions '.* The world was big enough for both, and mutual freedom of trade would pay the Dutch better than the English, because the Dutch were the more sparing and industrious people.^ If his highness could ever get as far as to bring it about, whether for individual traders or for trading companies, great would be the advantage for the mhabitants of this state. And, whether that came about or not, a war against England would be far worse than a war along with the English against France. It A'ould be interminably long and, being a sea-war, it would cut off the sources of the wealth of Holland, while England would still have her inland corn. It would put the French in possession of the Spanish Netherlands, and so it might revive the competition of Antwerp against Amsterdam, which had been prevented for forty years by the closing of the Scheldt. It would cut off the trade with the Levant and with America and close the fisheries. And if Holland, already on the verge of war with France, had such good reasons for avoiding war with England, the English, on their side, had causes enough, which the writer carefully enumerates, for making war on France. In a review of the former relations of England and Holland, he tries to bring out the services and shortcomings of England in the Protestant cause and the reasons for the rise of French power. He cannot be called an enthusiast for the English alliance, and his hopes from it depend first on its becoming an alliance against France and secondly on its bringing with it improved relations of commercial policy. But his pamphlet is entitled Holland's Welfare, lying in her unity ivith England. The other pamphlet, published at The Hague, is the work of an optimist and an Orange partisan.^ It was written after the outbreak of war between the Dutch and Louis, and it fore- shadows not merely a complete command of the sea,* but even a partition of France by the victorious allies.^ It is dominated by the political as opposed to the commercial habit of thinking : its main argument is that the English revolution and war with France will destroy the Jesuitical conspiracy for universal monarchy and will establish peace, toleration, and general ' ' Een vryen handel, ende vnigt onser Arbeyd, op reedelijke condltien ' (p. 8). • p. 11. ' De gelukkige aatistaande Qeivlgen uil de Unie en Verbintenis tusscheri Hoar Majeateiten Willcm de 111 en Maria de JI . . . en de Ho. Mo. Heeren (The Hague, 1*589). « p. 49. • p. 36.