The United Provinces of the Netherlands

Sources from old books

1685. Geographia universalis: the present state of the whole world by Pierre Duval.

The Ʋnited Provinces of the Low-Countries.

THe Ʋnited Provinces are so call'd, from their Union at Ʋtrecht, in the Year 1579. They are commonly called Holland, that being the richest & most populous Province of 'em all. Their situation is towards the end of the Rivers Rhine and Meuse, in the Northern part of the Low Countries, between the Dominions of the King of Spain in Flanders, England, which is separated from 'em by the Sea, and several Principalities of the Empire. The Princes of the Empire, who are their Neighbours, are the Duke of Newbourg, in his Dutchy of Juliers, and his Barony of Ravestein; the Elector of Brandenbourg, in his Dutchy of Cleves; the Elector of Cologn, the Bishop of Munster, the Count de Bentheim, the Prince of East-Friesland, in the Territories of the same Name. The Ʋnited Provinces, which before owed subjection to the King of Spain, have since been independent of one another, or to say rather, as many Republicks; which, altogether, make now but one, under the Name of the States General of the Ʋnited Provinces of the Low Countries. The Dignity of this State residing in the States General, the Absolute authority over things reserved by reason of the alliance, has remained in the States of each Province. The Seal of the Republick, is a Lion, holding a Bundle of Seven bound Arrows, with allusion to as many confederated Provinces; these Provinces, as the Politicians say, have not always been so well united, but that they resembled a Body, which has several Heads, some of which would draw it on one side, while the others endeavour to tug it on the other. There is no State in the World of so small an Extent, which has so great a number of Fortresses, and which seems better defended by the Nature of the Places than this: It has the See, and several Rivers, which defend it; the Rhine, the Meuse, the Waal, the Issel. Notwithstanding all these Defences, the French King made surprising Conquests in the Year 1672. by the reduction of three Provinces, and sixty considerable Towns, which proceeded from raw, unexpert, meer Citizens sons, being imploid in the Soldiery.

Besides the Ʋnited Previnces, and the Places that are in them, the States General have in Flanders, the Cities of Sluyce, Middlebourg, Ardembourg, Sasvan Gaunt, Axel, Hulst: in Brabant, Lisle, Bergen-ap-Zoom, Breda, Boisleduc, Grave: and they have Maestricht in the Bishoprick of Liege; Dalem, Fauquemont, Bolduc, in the Land of Outre Meuse. These Places were taken by the French King, but restor'd to them by his Majesty, in consideration of the Peace of 1678. In Germany, they had upon the Rhine, Orsoy, Wesel, Reez, Emerik, Genep, in the Dutchy of Cleves; Rhineberg in the Electorate of Cologn; these are return'd into the hands of its true Masters, in consideration of the aforesaid Peace. Towards Westphalia, the States General have Garrisons in the City of Embden, in the Forts of Eideler and Leer-ort, which belong to the Prince of East-Friesland.

There are in Holland two Companies of Merchants, the one for the East-Indies, the other for the West. The first of these Companies seems it self to be a Potent Republick: It boasts of having subdued more Leagues of Country, than there are Acres of Land in all Holland: Of having fourteen or fifteen thousand Soldiers, and a Number of Ships in its Service: Of employing commonly above fourscore thousand Men. It had long since above twenty very considerable Fortresses, as many Magazines upon the Coasts of the Indian-Sea, where it has endeavour'd to constrain several Petty Kings, not to receive, into their States, any other Nations of Europe than their own. The West-India Company is weak and feeble in respect of the other, whether that the Portugals have had more right and more strength than the Hollanders in Brazil: Or the term of the Concession of Priviledg, obtained by these from their Sovereign, be expired: Or, in short, that the Company of the East-Indies has us'd all its efforts to ruin the other. The Hollanders have hitherto been Powerful at Sea, have often beaten the French, the Spanish Fleets; nay, made Head against the English, who are Sovereigns of the Sea: The Number of their Ships is so great, that, if we may believe their Partizans, it equals that of the rest of Europe. They have always, in their own Country, wherewith to Equip a great Number, tho' their Land neither produces Wood nor other things necessary for that purpose: They are able to Arm out above a hundred to Sea, if they had but the Mariners and Soldiers they had formerly. At their first Establishment, they only pretended to Fishing, and Trading from Port to Port; since they have drove the richest Commerce that is carried on at Sea.

Amongst the Ʋnited-Provinces, there are four towards the West; Holland, Zealand, Ʋtrecht, Guelderland: Four towards the East, Zutphen, Over-Yssel, or Trans-Isalane, Friesland, Groninghen. Those who reckon but seven, make but one of that of Guelderland and Zutphen. In the Assemblies, these Provinces have ever given their Votes in the following Order, Guelderland with Zutphen first of all; then Holland, Zealand, Ʋtrecht, Friesland, Over-Yssel; finally, Groninghen with the Ommelands. Each of 'em sends its Deputies to the Hague, where are form'd three Colledges or Assemblies of them, the States-General, the Council of State, and the Chamber of Accounts. In the Assembly of the States-General, all the Provinces above-mention'd must consent, in General and in Particular, to the Resolutions that are taken therein, and do not follow the plurality of Voices. Each Province may send thither one, two, three, four or five Deputies; but all these Deputies have, together, but one Voice, and have right to Preside therein but one Week: That of Guelderland begins, because it is the most Ancient, and its Plenipotentiaries were the first who propos'd the Union. It is the same Province, which, in the Year 1674. had offer'd the Sovereignty to the Prince of Orange. The Admiralty has five Sessions, and as many Magazines, which are those of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Horn or Enkuysan, Middlebourg, Harlingen; the three former in Holland, the fourth in Zealand, the fifth in Friesland. As touching Religion, all sorts of Sects are tolerated in this State, as we have said, but Calvinism is principally followed.

The Province of Holland, taken by it self, is a great Peninsula, which maintains it self against the Assaults of the Sea by the means of its Dikes, where a careful Watch is kept both Day and Night. It alone has always Contributed more than all the other Provinces have done together: Of a hundred Livres, it furnishes fifty nine and a half. It has still some Nobility, the Brederodes, the Wassenaers, the Egmonts; this Nobility has ever Voted there the first, tho' it has but one Voice together, whereas, that eighteen Cities of the same Provinces had there each their own, with the Sovereignty bound by Alliance. Most of the Towns, in this Province, are beautiful and pleasant, as having been built in the last Age. Six of them are reckoned Principal, that are called Great, Dort, Haerlem, Delf, Leyden, Amsterdam, Goude.

Dort, whose Situation is upon four Rivers, has the first Voice, as that where the Counts of Holland, and their Subjects, gave reciprocally the Oath to one another: It is the Place where Mony is Coined, its Inhabitants have the Priviledg of Marching with Guards. In the Year 1421. of a Town upon the Continent, it became an Island by a terrible Inundation, which drown'd above ten thousand Persons and twelve Villages. Haerlem is the Place where the finest and whitest Linnen is made of the Province. Delf is the Place of the Sepulchre of the Princes of Orange, and where Porcelain Ware is made. Leyden is the Eye, or, according to others, the Garden of Holland, by reason of the Cleanness of its Streets, and the Beauty of its Houses: 'Tis Celebrated for its Antiquity, for its University and its excellent Impressions, for the Rhine's losing it self in the Sand, where endeavours have been, to no purpose, used to make a Sea-Port, in a word, for an entire Defeat of the Spanish Army in the last Age, after that the Hollanders had broken all the Neighbouring Dikes. A Native of this Town was the Taylor, who, to his own bane, made himself King of the Anabaptists in Munster.

Amsterdam Vyes with the best Cities of the World, in the great Number of its Ships, and the conveniency it has of sitting them out; it now drives the greatest part of the Commerce that was formerly carried on by Antwerp, Sevil and Lisbon: It alone Contributes as much, or more, than all the other Cities of the Province. The Inhabitants of the Country call it the Market and the Shop of the Rarities of the Universe, by reason of the various Merchandizes wherewith it is filled, and say, it has so much Gold and Silver, that there are sometimes found several Millions of Tuns of Gold in its Banck, each of those Tuns being esteemed at near ten thousand Pounds, the Expence for its Stadt-House, or Town-House, was Prodigious; finally, Amsterdam contains so many Riches, that they have been constrained to enlarge the Circuit of it. Gouda has this advantage, as being in a Place where the Waters are running, and where Inhabitants enjoy the purest Ait that is in all Holland. Rotterdam, the Birth-place of Erasmus, is the best of the twelve Cities they call petty, by reason of its great Traffick with England, and upon the Meuse. The Hague is the Residence of the Council of the States-General, but a Town the best Built, and the most Delicious in all Europe, where the Embassadors of the Neighbouring Princes make their usual Residence. The Texel is a Harbour towards the North, famous for a Retreat of Ships. The Brill has the same advantage towards the South; the rest of the Coast is full of Downs or Hills of Sands, with some Retreats for Fisher Boats and Busses.

Zealand is the Province, which first of all set it self at Liberty, and consented last to the Peace with Spain; the Prince of Orange possesses most of its particular Lordships and Baronies: those who compare the States-General to a Ship, say, that Zealand is the Pinnace. It consists of eight Principal Islands, whereof there are four great ones: that of Walcheren is the most beautiful of all those of the Low-Countries, with the Cities of Middlebourg and Flushing, both well fortified. Middlebourg, the chief of the Province, is the general Staple of the Country for Wines, Flushing a commodious Harbour for many Ships; the Duke of Alva had a design of causing a Cittadel to be built there, as well as at Antwerp. The small Isle of Duveland is known in the History of 1575. for the bold and hardy passage of the Spaniards, across the Sea under Mondragon.

The Barony of Ʋtrecht has a Capital City of the same Name, where dwell most of the Nobility of the Country: They reckon above fifty six Cities, to which one may go by Boat from Ʋtrecht in less than a day.

Guelderland has four Quarters; that of the same Name, which is toward the South, called the High-Quarter of Guelderland, belongs to the Spaniards, who, in the Year 1627. did [to no purpose at all] endeavour to bring the Rhine to the City of Gueldres, and into the Meuse, for the depriving the Ʋnited-Provinces of its Commerce with Germany. Nimmeghen, famous for the Conclusions of the Treaties of Peace, in the the Years 1678, and 1679. is the Capital of Holland's Guelderland, in the Quarter of the Betuve, the abode of the ancient Batavians. Arnheim is in that of the Veluve.

The Province of Zutphen bears the same Name with its Capital City, and passes sometimes for a fourth Quarter of the Dutchy of Guelderland, having no Vote in the Assemblies of the States-General, but conjoyntly with this Dutchy; besides this Capital, at the Siege thereof, •ell that Ornament of our Nation, Sir Philip Sidney, as great a Wit, Courtier, Soldier and Statesman, perhaps, as ever was: There is in this Province Groll, and eight or nine small Cities.

Over-Yssel, otherwise Trans-Isaline, is so called from its Situation beyond the Yssel, where the Rhine communicates part of its Waters, by the means of a Trench or Chanel, which Drusus caused formerly to be made: There are three Countries, Salande, Tuvente, Drente, where, they would persuade us, were formerly the Salians, Tubantes and Tencterians. Saland has Deventer the Capital of the Province, a famous passage over the Yssel, Drente has Coeworden, one of the most regular Pentagones of Europe.

Friesland affords special strong Horses, and Beeves of an excessive bigness. It has had, at divers times, Princes, Dukes, and [according to some] Kings, who have resided at Staveren. Leuvarden has the States or Parliament: Dokum the Admiralty of the Province. Schelling is an Island upon the Coast, where are some Towns which serve to give signal to the Ships They Hunt the Sea-Dogs there after a pleasing manner: The Men, who mean to take them, disguise themselves like Drummers, and, with a thousand Apish Tricks, do insensibly attract, towards the midst of the Island, those poor Creatures who are over-joy'd to see them; but, in the mean while, Nets are laid, which hinder their returning to the Sea. The Passage between this Island and that of the Ʋlie is much frequented; out there go thence Ships, which are bound for the North and the Baltick-Sea.

Groninghen, which has the last Voice in the Assemblies of the States-General, has but two Cities, Groninghen and Dam. Groninghen is in so important a Situation, by reason of the Frontier, that the Duke of Alva projected the. making a Cittadel there. In the Year 1672 after the taking of several Places, the Bishop of Munster had the displeasure of not being able to compass his Design upon this. The Province has Pasturages, wherein Turfs are made, which serve for Fewel. It has several Navigable Chanels, the Key whereof seems to be contain'd in the Fortress of Delfzil at the Mouth of the Ems. The Ommelands, which make a part of it towards the East, have frequent Disputes with this Province, and would willingly pretend to make the eighth of the Ʋnited-Provinces.