They spoke two dialects of
one widespread language. Both boasted of their political freedom. Both
were attached to the reformed faith. Both were threatened by the same
enemy, and would be safe only while they were united. Yet there was no
cordial feeling between them. They would probably have loved each other
more, if they had, in some respects, resembled each other less. They
were the two great commercial nations, the two great maritime nations.
In every sea their flags were found together, in the Baltic and in the
Mediterranean, in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Straits of Malacca.
Every where the merchant of London and the merchant of Amsterdam were
trying to forestall each other and to undersell each other. In Europe
the contest was not sanguinary. But too often, in barbarous countries,
where there was no law but force, the competitors had met, burning with
cupidity, burning with animosity, armed for battle, each suspecting
the other of hostile designs and each resolved to give the other no
advantage. In such circumstances it is not strange that many violent
and cruel acts should have been perpetrated. What had been done in those
distant regions could seldom be exactly known in Europe. Every thing
was exaggerated and distorted by vague report and by national prejudice.
Here it was the popular belief that the English were always blameless,
and that every quarrel was to be ascribed to the avarice and inhumanity
of the Dutch. Lamentable events which had taken place in the Spice
Islands were repeatedly brought on our stage. The Englishmen were
all saints and heroes; the Dutchmen all fiends in human shape, lying,
robbing, ravishing, murdering, torturing. The angry passions which these
pieces indicated had more than once found vent in war. Thrice in the
lifetime of one generation the two nations had contended, with equal
courage and with various fortune, for the sovereignty of the German
Ocean. The tyranny of James, as it had reconciled Tories to Whigs and
Churchmen to Nonconformists, had also reconciled the English to the
Dutch. While our ancestors were looking to the Hague for deliverance,
the massacre of Amboyna and the great humiliation of Chatham had seemed
to be forgotten. But since the Revolution the old feeling had revived.
Though England and Holland were now closely bound together by treaty,
they were as far as ever from being bound together by affection. Once,
just after the battle of Beachy Head, our countrymen h