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Updated: May 6, 2025
The King replied that "he trusted to his own forces, not to those of his neighbours, and even if the Hollanders should not declare for him still he would execute his designs.
Would not Howard, Drake, Frobisher, Seymour, Winter, and Hawkins, be swept out of the straits at last, yielding an open passage to Medina, Oquendo, Recalde, and Farnese? Would those Hollanders and Zeelanders, cruising so vigilantly among their treacherous shallows, dare to maintain their post, now that the terrible 'Holofernese, with his invincible legions, was resolved to come forth?
The high mountains of the Scandinavian peninsula separate the Norwegians from the Swedes about as well as they divide the countries geographically. The Hollanders make a nation by themselves, but part of the northwestern corner of the German Empire is also peopled by Dutch.
The Hollanders replied, that, according to their contract with England, they were at liberty to send as many as forty or fifty vessels at a time to Spain and Portugal, that they had never exceeded the stipulated number, that England freely engaged in the same traffic herself with the common enemy, that it was not reasonable to consider cordage or dried fish or shooks and staves, butter, eggs, and corn as contraband of war, that if they were illegitimate the English trade was vitiated to the same degree, and that it would be utterly hopeless for the provinces to attempt to carry on the war, except by enabling themselves, through the widest and most unrestricted foreign commerce, even including the enemy's realms, to provide their nation with the necessary wealth to sustain so gigantic a conflict.
In that year the whole country was reduced under the dominion of the crown of England, which put an end to the rule of the Hollanders, who had then recently conquered the Swedes. The surrender was of course not demanded in the name of the city of Amsterdam but in that of the Dutch republic, the United Provinces.
But it is very certain that although the Spanish armadas would have found it comparatively difficult to equip themselves without the tar and the timber, the cordage, the stores, and the biscuits furnished by the Hollanders, the rebellious commonwealth, if excluded from the world's commerce, in which it had learned to play so controlling a part, must have ceased to exist.
The Good Venture had, flying the Dutch flag, joined Boisot's fleet at Romerswael, a few miles below Bergen, on the 27th of January; and when the Hollanders became aware of the nationality of the vessel which had just joined them, they welcomed them with tremendous cheers. Two days later the fleet of Romero were seen coming down the river in three divisions.
Instead of such vigorous action, it was thought wiser to send commissioners, to make protocols, to ask for armistices, to give profusely to the enemy that which he was most in need of time. Meanwhile the Hollanders and English could quarrel comfortably among themselves, and the little republic, for want of a legal head, could come as near as possible to its dissolution.
The agent did not feel complimented by the coolness of this reception; yet it was reasonable enough, certainly, that the Hollanders should remember with bitterness the contumely, which they had experienced the previous year in France. The emissary was; however, much disgusted.
As to the famous regiments of Sicily, and the ancient legions of Naples and Milan, a distinguished Venetian envoy, who had seen all the camps and courts of Christendom, and was certainly not disposed to overrate the Hollanders at the expense of the Italians, if any rivalry between them had been possible, declared that every private soldier in the republic was fit to be a captain in any Italian army; while, on the other hand, there was scarcely an Italian captain who would be accepted as a private in any company of the States.
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