est Indies, and on
the west coast of Africa. The regular home army contains fifty-nine
thousand officers and men. Its navy consists of fifty-eight steamers and
eighty-one sailing vessels.

"I do not think you will be likely to realize the poetic ideal of the
Dutchmen, young gentlemen. Though they drink a great deal of beer and
Schiedam schnapps, you will seldom find them intoxicated; and I have
never been able to see that they smoke any more than the people of our
own country. They are not necessarily fat and clumsy. The men are of
medium stature, in no special degree distinguished from other people in
Europe and America. The women are very domestic, and very cleanly in
their persons and in their dwellings. The Dutch people are prudent,
economical, beforehanded.

"In the brief sketch I gave you at Antwerp of the history of the
Netherlands, that of Holland was included up to the period of the murder
of the Prince of Orange, which occurred in 1584, while he was
Stadtholder of the Seven United Provinces. At his death, his son, Prince
Maurice, was elected Stadtholder in his father's place. He was then only
seventeen years of age, but he proved to be a young man of great
military ability, and commenced a glorious career, which ended only with
his life, in 1625. With the bright example of Prince Maurice before
them, I think our young captains of his age may be encouraged."

This remark "brought down the house," and more than fifty of the
students glanced at Paul Kendall, whose "improbable" achievements in the
Josephine were the admiration of everybody in the squadron, except
Professor Hamblin.

"Philip II. died in 1598, and his successor continued his efforts to
conquer the Dutch, but without success. By this time Holland had created
the most powerful navy in the world, and with her seventy thousand
seamen swept the commerce of the Spaniards from the seas, even in the
remotest waters of the globe. The galleons and treasure ships from the
colonies of Spain were captured, and their rich booty poured into the
exchequer of the Dutch. The monarch of Castile was almost impoverished
by these losses; and, deprived of the means to carry on the war of
subjugation, he agreed, in 1609, to a truce of twelve years.

"Religious dissensions then broke out in Holland, which soon assumed a
political turn. The Stadtholder, Prince Maurice, was ambitious to become
the hereditary sovereign of Holland, in which he was opposed by
Barneveldt, a