It is singular to observe the fertile erections of monopoly in a state founded on principles of commercial freedom.  The East and West India companies, the Greenland company, and others, were successively formed.  By the effect of their enterprise, industry and wealth, conquests were made and colonies founded with surprising rapidity.  The town of Amsterdam, now New York, was founded in 1624; and the East saw Batavia rise up from the ruins of Jacatra, which was sacked and razed by the Dutch adventurers.

The Dutch and English East India companies, repressing their mutual jealousy, formed a species of partnership in 1619 for the reciprocal enjoyment of the rights of commerce.  But four years later than this date an event took place so fatal to national confidence that its impressions are scarcely yet effaced—­this was the torturing and execution of several Englishmen in the island of Amboyna, on pretence of an unproved plot, of which every probability leads to the belief that they were wholly innocent.  This circumstance was the strongest stimulant to the hatred so evident in the bloody wars which not long afterward took place between the two nations; and the lapse of two centuries has not entirely effaced its effects.  Much has been at various periods written for and against the establishment of monopolizing companies, by which individual wealth and skill are excluded from their chances of reward.  With reference to those of Holland at this period of its history, it is sufficient to remark that the great results of their formation could never have been brought about by isolated enterprises; and the justice or wisdom of their continuance are questions wholly dependent on the fluctuations in trade, and the effects produced on that of any given country by the progress and the rivalry of others.

With respect to the state of manners in the republic, it is clear that the jealousies and emulation of commerce were not likely to lessen the vice of avarice with which the natives have been reproached.  The following is a strong expression of one, who cannot, however, be considered an unprejudiced observer, on occasion of some disputed points between the Dutch and English maritime tribunals—­“The decisions of our courts cause much ill-will among these people, whose hearts’ blood is their purse."[5] While drunkenness was a vice considered scarcely scandalous, the intrigues of gallantry were concealed with the most scrupulous mystery—­giving evidence of at least good taste, if not of pure morality.  Court etiquette began to be of infinite importance.  The wife of Count Ernest Casimir of Nassau was so intent on the preservation of her right of precedence that on occasion of Lady Carleton, the British ambassadress, presuming to dispute the pas, she forgot true dignity so far as to strike her.  We may imagine the vehement resentment of such a man as Carleton for such an outrage.  The lower orders of the people had the rude and brutal manners common to half-civilized