Zeeland, one-eighth respectively by the
chambers of the Meuse and of North Holland. The chambers of Amsterdam, of
Zeeland, of the Meuse, and of North Holland were to have respectively
thirty, eighteen, fifteen, and fifteen directors. Of these seventy-eight,
one-third were to be replaced every sixth year by others, while from the
whole number seventeen persons were to be elected as a permanent board of
managers. Dividends were to be made as soon as the earnings amounted to
ten per cent. on the capital. Maritime judges were to decide upon prizes,
the proceeds of which were not to be divided for six years, in order that
war might be self-sustaining. Afterwards, the treasury of the United
Provinces should receive one-tenth, Prince Maurice one-thirtieth, and the
merchant stockholders the remainder. Governors and generals were to take
the oath of fidelity to the States-General. The merchandize of the
company was to be perpetually free of taxation, so far as regarded old
duties, and exempt from war-taxes for the first twenty years.

Very violent and conflicting were the opinions expressed throughout the
republic in regard to this project. It was urged by those most in favour
of it that the chief sources of the greatness of Spain would be thus
transferred to the States-General; for there could be no doubt that the
Hollanders, unconquerable at sea, familiar with every ocean-path, and
whose hardy constitutions defied danger and privation and the extremes of
heat and cold, would easily supplant the more delicately organized
adventurers from Southern Europe, already enervated by the exhausting
climate of America. Moreover, it was idle for Spain to attempt the
defence of so vast a portion of the world. Every tribe over which she had
exercised sway would furnish as many allies for the Dutch company as it
numbered men; for to obey and to hate the tyrannical Spaniard were one.
The republic would acquire, in reality, the grandeur which with Spain was
but an empty boast, would have the glory of transferring the great war
beyond the limits of home into those far distant possessions, where the
enemy deemed himself most secure, and would teach the true religion to
savages sunk in their own superstitions, and still further depraved by
the imported idolatries of Rome. Commerce was now world-wide, and the
time had come for the Netherlanders, to whom the ocean belonged, to tear
out from the pompous list of the Catholic king's titles his appellati