down whatever was peculiarly striking in the manners of the Dutch, or had originated from the late revolution in their government. Few Englishmen seem to have a true idea of this revolution; and it is imagined by the majority, not only that the old constitution has been entirely subverted, but that every vestige of liberty has been utterly destroyed, and the Dutch been made the mere tools of Gallic despotism. This publication gives a very different representation; and the French, as a people, are said to be preferred by the inhabitants either to the English or to the family of the late stadtholder. Their old and genuine constitution had been destroyed by the Orange party before the troubles of France commenced. In consequence of those troubles and the war which followed, the exiled Dutch returned into their own country with stronger sentiments of aversion to the stadtholder and the aristocratic faction; the principles of democracy gained the ascendency, and the sovereignty of the people was acknowledged. Many individuals have suffered very much in their property: but the general manners of the people appear to have been little changed; and the return of peace, if it should be connected with their ancient love of accumulation, will soon recall a large portion of the treasures of the world to the bank of Amsterdam.

The most singular feature that has of late been exhibited in the country is the remarkable aversion entertained for the stadtholder and his family-a family which was once the pride of every Dutchman, and under whose auspices the most glorious struggles have been made in the great cause of liberty. It required a long course of years, and a particular line of conduct, to destroy the attachment to the house of Orange; but this retreat of its head from Holland, like that of our James II. from England, seems to have been fatal to its interests. For a considerable time the stadtholders

-had shed a lustre on the republic by their great abilities, which concealed their designs against the liberties of the people; but William V. inherited the ambition of his ancestors, without any pretensions to their splendid talents. His reign (if I may be permitted to use that term to denominate an authority almost regal) was marked by a suc cession of disasters, and closed with the conquest of his country and his precipitate flight. If a long train of circumstances, for which the stadtholder could not be blamed, had impaired the resources and weakened the energies of the republic, its fall was undoubtedly accelerated by the feeble and impolitic administration of that prince and his ministers. But the chief cause of his unpopularity, and of the extravagant joy that was displayed on his departure, was his attachment to the court of London. The Dutch had long viewed with bitter jealousy, on account of their own impoverished trade, the flourishing commerce of the British empire; and a mysterious connexion,

highly unfavourable to the republic, was supposed to exist between the stadtholder and the English government.

، It was reported (with what truth I cannot determine) and received with avidity, that the battle of the Dogger Bank, a combathonourable to the Dutch marine, was fought in disobedience to the orders of the admiral-general; and amongst other rumours then circulated and afterwards revived, it was said, that when the news of the battle arrived at the Hague, the stadtholder expressed his satisfaction that the English had not lost any ships. A naval officer, extremely well disposed to the new government, to whom in conversation I applied for information on the subject, assured me of his entire disbelief of either reports; and it is probable, had any evidence existed of orders given by the stadtholder to his admirals to avoid the English fleet, the directory would have published a fact so disgraceful to the prince of Orange.

But if we reject, as originating in the malice of party, the story which accuses the stadtholder of absolutely betraying his country, and expressing a most unnatural joy at the success of its enemies, it is certain his partiality for England was so plainly manifested as to excite universal discontent, not only in the great commercial cities of the United Provinces, which regarded Great-Britain as the dangerous and insidious rival of their trade, but at the Hague and other places where the personal influence of the prince of Orange might be supposed to be considerable.

These discontents, shortly after the restoration of peace, ripened into open insurrection, and the stadtholder would have been dismissed with ignominy from his government, had not Prussia and GreatBritain interfered for the preservation of his authority. The arms of one of these powers, and the threats of the other, maintained the prince of Orange in his offices, and even procured for him an acces sion of power. But his forcible re-establishment in the stadtholderate by the violent interference of foreign powers gave great offence to the moderate as well as to the republican party, and in proportion as the prince's authority was augmented the respect to his character was diminished. The zealous republicans, who with difficulty would have tolerated a stadtholder of the most profound talents, beheld with vivid indignation that high dignity, at a crisis which demanded consummate abilities, filled by a prince of a very limited capacity; and the notion was extensively circulated by the mischievous activity of party, that the calamities of the nation were to be attributed solely to the mal-administration of the prince.' P. 96.

France is disgraced by the blood spilled in its civil contests. The triumph of the Orange party in 1788 was marked by the proscriptions of its enemies.

It is most honourable to all who were concerned in the subversion of the ancient government of the United Provinces, a government which had subsisted two hundred years, respected in its foreign and domestic relations, and enjoying all the advantages of prescription and long establishment, that not one drop of human blood was judicially shed on its overthrow. I was at great pains to gather what

would probably have been the fate of the stadtholder and his family, had they awaited in Holland the storm that burst over their unfortunate house; and amidst a great diversity of opinions, the prevailing sentiment was, that they would have been banished from the territories of the republic. This opinion is corroborated by the knowledge of the influence which the king of Prussia, at that time negotiating with France, possessed in the councils of that republic; and he certainly would have averted, either by threats or force, any violence from being offered to the princess of Orange his sister, or her family. But undoubtedly, under the alarming circumstances in which they were placed, the wisest measure which the family of Orange could pursue was that which they adopted; for had they remained at the Hague till the arrival of the enemy, had their personal safeties not been endangered, they must have suffered many indignities, and been harassed with much anxiety and alarm.' P. 106.

The effects of the stoppage of the English bank are likely to be severely felt in future by British travelers.

The exchange between Rotterdam and London on bills payable three days after sight is at the difference of the enormous sum of twelve per cent. in favour of the former city. This difference is not so much caused by the balance of trade, which is to the advantage of Rotterdam, as by the ideas which prevail on the continent of the financial embarrassments of the British nation, and the depreciation which the notes of the bank of England have undergone since that body has ceased to issue cash for their paper. Could I have given bills on Hamburgh I could have had cash for them almost at par; or could I have engaged that my drafts should be paid in London with specie, the difference in the exchange would have been considerably less. It is the opinion of very intelligent merchants at Rotterdam, that whenever peace is restored to Europe, should the bank of England not resume paying its notes in cash, the exchange with London will be still more unfavourable to that city; for then, in every commercial sense, the bank must be accounted insolvent, and its paper of no more value than French assignats. P. 146.

The stoppage of the bank of England is an important æra in the history of banking; and the fate of the bank of Amsterdam must be an object of general curiosity to the commercial world. The account given of it in this work seems to have been the result of accurate information, and affords matter for much serious reflexion.

A few years ago the bank of Amsterdam was supposed to contain the greatest quantity of accumulated treasures in the world. It was accounted the store-house of Europe for the precious metals: and various estimates have been formed of its wealth, from the incredible sum of forty millions sterling, to the equally suspicious estimate of three hundred thousand pounds. The bank of Amsterdam was a bank of deposit, and the credit on its books was thought to be rigorously proportioned with the treasures in its coffers. This was indeed the spirit of the institution; for though the vulgar idea

was unfounded, that no money once deposited in this bank could ever afterwards be withdrawn, it invariably professed to keep in its repositories a quantity of money or bullion equal to the sums for which credit was given on its books. In 1672, when the forces of Lewis XIV. almost thundered at the gates of Amsterdam, and the republic was filled with consternation, all demands on the bank were honourably and instantaneously discharged, and the proofs of its solvency ostentatiously displayed.

From that period, till again in 1795 the armies of France hovered on the frontier of the republic, the bank of Amsterdam enjoyed an almost uninterrupted course of commercial confidence. The magistrates of various parties, to whose integrity the direction. of the bank was successively intrusted, never accused their predecessors of any improper use of its treasures; and therefore, though some suspicions were entertained and propagated that the bank occasionally accommodated the government with specie, these suspicions, being discountenanced by the persons possessed of the best information on the subject, were disregarded as the effects of party malice. It was also a kind of commercial heresy to doubt the stability of the bank of Amsterdam; and therefore all rumours to its disadvantage were not only received by the mercantile world with coldness, but repressed with acrimony.

The arrival of the French in Amsterdam, and the establishment of the patriotic party in power, at length produced a complete investigation of the affairs of the bank. It appeared from the official report, published by order of the provisional representatives of Amsterdam, on this subject, that for the last fifty years the bank had occasionally advanced on bond to the India company, under guarantee of the city of Amsterdam, various sums, amounting on the whole to upwards of six million florins. In a similar way the provinces of Holland and West Friesland were indebted to the bank nearly a million florins. The loan-office of Amsterdam had contracted with the bank a debt of one million seven hundred and fifty thousand florins, and the city was otherwise in arrears with the bank upwards of four hundred thousand florins-the whole amounting to upwards of nine million florins, or rather more than eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. For the whole of this sum there had originally been investments of cash or bullion in the bank; to remove one florin of which, by way of loan, was a violation of the compact between the bank and its creditors. But if the money so disposed of, instead of being hoarded up in the coffers of the bank, in a duplicate ratio increased the circulating medium of the country, efficiently by the cash so issued from the strong chests of the bank, and virtually by the credit which it possessed from the imaginary treasure lodged in it, giving confidence and activity to commerce, and facili tating all the operations of trade, in a mercantile point of view, the conduct of the directors, in thus departing from the letter of their establishment, was to be applauded rather than condemned.

The merchants of Amsterdam, however, thought otherwise. This deficiency in the sacred deposits of the bank excited the most vivid indignation against all who had been concerned in the manage,

ment of that institution, and the spirit of party tended to keep alive and heighten the flames of commercial resentment.

The money thus taken from the coffers of the bank could at no time have been claimed by its creditors, being an accumulation of treasure for which the receipts were expired, by which alone payment could be demanded. The nature of these receipts, by which alone cash could be drawn from the bank of Amsterdam, may be briefly explained. When a person deposited cash or bullion in the bank, he obtained credit in its books for the sum which he so invested, and a receipt, by which, within the period of six months, after cancelling the credit that he had obtained, he could draw his cash or bullion from the bank. These receipts were renewable on payment of a small per centage to the bank, as warehouse rent for the cash lodged in it. If they were permitted to expire, the money or bullion for which they were granted could not be withdrawn from the bank, but the person who had so invested it possessed an equivalent bank credit; which, however, he could convert into cash, by purchasing a receipt for the sum that he wanted in the stockmarket, where they were generally to be sold.

Of the cash and bullion which had fallen to the bank, or rather was become or ought to have been locked up in it, from the expiration of these receipts, not a single florin remained; and the amount of this mighty and boasted treasure, had it been carefully stored in the vaults and caves of the bank, would not have reached the sum of one million sterling.' P. 293.

This vacuum in the treasure of the bank might have led to very serious consequences; but, with admirable prudence, the provisional representatives of Amsterdam prevented the effusion of blood. The affairs of the East and West-India companies were examined-the holders of bank credit were informed that they were at liberty to withdraw their money whenever they thought proper-the bank was recalled to its original institution; and, in giving a full account of its resources, the representatives declare, that they desire by no means to be considered as approving of or confirming the use that may have been made of the deposits of the bank, and much less of discharging by any thing in this proclamation those who may be reprehensible on that subject.'

Among ourselves, Holland is considered as completely ruined; among the Dutch the same opinion is entertained of England; and though the general loss sustained by the former country, from the demands of the French, cannot be estimated at much less than 40 per cent. on its whole capital, it was urged by a Dutch merchant, and with great plausibility, that England had suffered an equal, if not a more serious diminution of its capital, from the enormous debt incurred by the war, and the profligate expenditure of its ministers.'

No opinion prevails in Holland more generally than that, whenever peace is restored to Europe, a national bankruptcy will take