mercial and financial prosperity
of the city of Amsterdam, that chief centre of opposition gave its
support to his authority; and he was able to do this while keeping at
the same time on good terms with Bentinck, Steyn, Fagel and the Orange
party.

The political position of the United Provinces during the early part of
the Brunswick guardianship was impotent and ignominious in the extreme.
Despite continued protests and complaints, Dutch merchantmen were
constantly being searched for contraband and brought as prizes into
English ports; and the lucrative trade that had been carried on between
the West Indies and France in Dutch bottoms was completely stopped. Even
the fitting out of twenty-one ships of the line, as a convoy, effected
nothing, for such a force could not face the enormous superiority of the
English fleet, which at that time swept the seas. The French ambassador,
D'Affry, made most skilful use of his opportunities to create a
pro-French party in Holland and especially in Amsterdam, and he was not
unsuccessful in his intrigues. But the Dutch resolve to remain neutral
at any cost remained as strong as ever, for, whatever might be the case
with maritime Holland, the inland provinces shrank from running any
risks of foreign invasion. When at last the Peace of Paris came in 1763,
the representatives of the United Provinces, though they essayed to
play the part of mediators between the warring powers, no longer
occupied a position of any weight in the councils of the European
nations. The proud Republic, which had treated on equal terms with
France and with Great Britain in the days of John de Witt and of William
III, had become in the eyes of the statesmen of 1763 a negligible
quantity.

One of the effects of the falling-off in the overseas trade of Amsterdam
was to transform this great commercial city into the central exchange of
Europe. The insecurity of sea-borne trade caused many of the younger
merchants to deal in money securities and bills of exchange rather than
in goods. Banking houses sprang up apace, and large fortunes were made
by speculative investments in stocks and shares; and loans for foreign
governments, large and small, were readily negotiated. This state of
things reached its height during the Seven Years' War, but with the
settlement which followed the peace of 1763 disaster came. On July 25
the chief financial house in Amsterdam, that of De Neufville, failed to
meet its liabilities and bro