The United Provinces were soon without any rival on the seas.  In Europe alone they had one thousand two hundred merchant ships in activity, and upward of seventy thousand sailors constantly employed.  They built annually two thousand vessels.  In the year 1598, eighty ships sailed from their ports for the Indies or America.  They carried on, besides, an extensive trade on the coast of Guinea, whence they brought large quantities of gold-dust; and found, in short, in all quarters of the globe the reward of their skill, industry, and courage.

The spirit of conquest soon became grafted on the habits of trade.  Expedition succeeded to expedition.  Failure taught wisdom to those who did not want bravery.  The random efforts of individuals were succeeded by organized plans, under associations well constituted and wealthy; and these soon gave birth to those eastern and western companies before alluded to.  The disputes between the English and the Hanseatic towns were carefully observed by the Dutch, and turned to their own advantage.  The English manufacturers, who quickly began to flourish, from the influx of Flemish workmen under the encouragement of Elizabeth, formed companies in the Netherlands, and sent their cloths into those very towns of Germany which formerly possessed the exclusive privilege of their manufacture.  These towns naturally felt dissatisfied, and their complaints were encouraged by the king of Spain.  The English adventurers received orders to quit the empire; and, invited by the states-general, many of them fixed their residence in Middleburg, which became the most celebrated woollen market in Europe.

The establishment of the Jews in the towns of the republic forms a remarkable epoch in the annals of trade.  This people, so outraged by the loathsome bigotry which Christians have not blushed to call religion, so far from being depressed by the general persecution, seemed to find it a fresh stimulus to the exertion of their industry.  To escape death in Spain and Portugal they took refuge in Holland, where toleration encouraged and just principles of state maintained them.  They were at first taken for Catholics, and subjected to suspicion; but when their real faith was understood they were no longer molested.

Astronomy and geography, two sciences so closely allied with and so essential to navigation, flourished now throughout Europe.  Ortilius of Antwerp, and Gerard Mercator of Rupelmonde, were two of the greatest geographers of the sixteenth century; and the reform in the calendar at the end of that period gave stability to the calculations of time, which had previously suffered all the inconvenient fluctuations attendant on the old style.