hose pioneers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
confronted the nameless horrors of either pole, in the interests of
commerce, and for the direct purpose of enlarging the bounds of the human
intellect.

The achievements, the sufferings, and the triumphs of Barendz and Cordes,
Heemskerk, Van der Hagen, and many others, have been slightly indicated
in these pages. The contributions to botany, mineralogy, geometry,
geography, and zoology, of Linschoten, Plancius, Wagenaar, and Houtmann,
and so many other explorers of pole and tropic, can hardly be overrated.

The Netherlanders had wrung their original fatherland out of the grasp of
the ocean. They had confronted for centuries the wrath of that ancient
tyrant, ever ready to seize the prey of which he had been defrauded.

They had waged fiercer and more perpetual battle with a tyranny more
cruel than the tempest, with an ancient superstition more hungry than the
sea. It was inevitable that a race, thus invigorated by the ocean,
cradled to freedom by their conflicts with its power, and hardened almost
to invincibility by their struggle against human despotism, should be
foremost among the nations in the development of political, religious,
and commercial freedom.

The writer now takes an affectionate farewell of those who have followed
him with an indulgent sympathy as he has attempted to trace the origin
and the eventful course of the Dutch commonwealth. If by his labours a
generous love has been fostered for that blessing, without which
everything that this earth can afford is worthless--freedom of thought,
of speech, and of life--his highest wish has been fulfilled.
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About equal to that of England at the same period An unjust God, himself
the origin of sin Butchery in the name of Christ was suspended Calling a
peace perpetual can never make it so Chieftains are dwarfed in the
estimation of followers Each in its turn becoming orthodox, and therefore
persecuting Exorcising the devil by murdering his supposed victims
Foremost to shake off the fetters of superstition God of vengeance, of
jealousy, and of injustice Gomarites accused the Arminians of being more
lax than Papists Hangman is not the most appropriate teacher of religion
He often spoke of popular rights with contempt John Wier, a physician of
Grave Necessity of extirpating heresy, root and branch Nowhere were so
few unproductive consumers Paving the way towards atheism (by tolera