The History of the Netherlands

The scenery of Dutch history has episodes as stirring and instructive as those of any civilized people since history began; but it reached its dramatic and moral apogee when the independence of the United Netherlands was acknowledged by Spain. The Netherlands then reached their loftiest pinnacle of power and prosperity; their colonial possessions were vast and rich; their reputation as guardians of liberty and the rights of man was foremost in the world. But further than this they could not go; and the moment when a people ceases to advance may generally be regarded as the moment when, relatively speaking at least, it begins to go backward. The Dutch could in no sense become the masters of Europe; not only was their domain too small, but it was geographically at a disadvantage with the powerful and populous nations neighboring it, and it was compelled ever to fight for its existence against the attacks of nature itself. The stormy waves of the North Sea were ever moaning and threatening at the gates, and ever and anon a breach would be made, and the labor of generations annulled. Holland could never enter upon a career of conquest, like France or Russia; neither could she assume the great part which Britain has played; for although the character of the Dutchmen is in many respects as strong and sound as that of the English, and in some ways its superior, yet the Dutch had not been dowered with a sea-defended isle for their habitation, which might enable them to carry out enterprises abroad without the distraction and weakness involved in maintaining adequate guards at home. They were mighty in self-defence and in resistance against tyranny; and they were unsurpassed in those virtues and qualities which go to make a nation rich and orderly; but aggression could not be for them. They took advantage of their season of power to confirm themselves in the ownership of lands in the extreme East and in the West, which should be a continual source of revenue; but they could do no more; and they wasted not a little treasure and strength in preserving what they had gained, or a part of it, from the grasp of others. But this was the sum of their possibility; they could not presume to dictate terms to the world; and the consequence was that they gradually ceased to be a considered factor in the European problem. In some respects, their territorial insignificance, while it prevented them from aggressive action, preserved them from aggression; their domain was not worth conquering, and again its conquest could not be accomplished by any nation without making others uneasy and jealous. They became, like Switzerland, and unlike Poland and Hungary, a neutral region, which it was for the interest of Europe at large to let alone. None cared to meddle with them; and, on the other hand, they had native virtue and force enough to resist being absorbed into other peoples; the character of the Dutch is as distinct to-day as ever it had been...