French fashions and manners were the vogue amongst them, and English clothes, furniture and food.  In the country—­platteland—­people had no voice whatever in public affairs; they were not even represented, as the ordinary townspeople were by their regents.  Thus the United Netherlands had not only ceased to be a unified state in any real sense of the word, but had ceased likewise to be a free state.  It consisted of a large number of semi-independent oligarchies of the narrowest description; and the great mass of its population was deprived of every vestige of civic rights.

That such a State should have survived at all is to be explained by the fact that the real control over the foreign policy of the Republic and over its general government continued to be exercised by the band of experienced statesmen who had served under William III and inherited his traditions.  Heinsius, the wise and prudent council-pensionary, continued in office until his death cm August 3, 1720, when he was succeeded by Isaac van Hoornbeck, pensionary of Rotterdam.  Hoornbeck was not a man of great parts, but he was sound and safe and he had at his side Simon van Slingelandt, secretary of the Council of State since 1690, and others whose experience in public office dated from the preceding century.  In their hands the external policy of the Republic, conducted with no lack of skill, was of necessity non-interventionist.  In internal matters they could effect little.  The finances after the war were in an almost hopeless condition, and again and again the State was threatened with bankruptcy.  To make things worse an epidemic of wild speculation spread far and wide during the period 1716-1720 in the bubble companies, the Mississippi Company and the South Sea Company, associated with the name of Edward Law, which proved so ruinous to many in England and France, as well as in Holland.  In 1716 such was the miserable condition of the country that the Estates of Overyssel, under the leadership of Count van Rechteren, proposed the summoning of a Great Assembly on the model of that of 1651 to consider the whole question of government and finance.  The proposal was ultimately accepted, and the Assembly met at the Hague on November 28.  After nine months of ineffectual debate and wrangling it finally came to an end on September 14, 1717, without effecting anything, leaving all who had the best interests of the State at heart in despair.

In the years immediately succeeding the Peace of Utrecht difficulties arose with Charles XII of Sweden; whose privateers had been seizing Dutch and English merchantmen in the Baltic.  Under De Witt or William III the fleet of the Republic would speedily have brought the Swedish king to reason.  But now other counsels prevailed.  Dutch squadrons sailed into the Baltic with instructions to convoy the merchant vessels, but to avoid hostilities.  With some difficulty this purpose was achieved; and the death of Charles at