od by those who
witnessed its lamentable results. In other countries, Belgium for
instance, where great manufactories existed, the loss of maritime
communication was compensated by the exclusion of English goods. In
states possessed of large and fertile territories, the population
which could no longer be employed in commerce might be occupied
in agricultural pursuits. But in Holland, whose manufactures were
inconsiderable, and whose territory is insufficient to support
its inhabitants, the destruction of trade threw innumerable
individuals wholly out of employment, and produced a graduated
scale of poverty in all ranks. A considerable part of the population
had been employed in various branches of the traffic carried on
by means of the many canals which conveyed merchandise from the
seaports into the interior, and to the different continental
markets. When the communication with England was cut off, principals
and subordinates were involved in a common ruin.

In France, the effect of the continental system was somewhat
alleviated by the license trade, the exportation of various
productions forced on the rest of continental Europe, and the
encouragement given to home manufactures. But all this was reversed
in Holland: the few licenses granted to the Dutch were clogged
with duties so exorbitant as to make them useless; the duties on
one ship which entered the Maese, loaded with sugar and coffee,
amounting to about fifty thousand pounds sterling. At the same
time every means was used to crush the remnant of Dutch commerce
and sacrifice the country to France. The Dutch troops were clothed
and armed from French manufactories; the frontiers were opened
to the introduction of French commodities duty free; and the
Dutch manufacturer undersold in his own market.

The population of Amsterdam was reduced from two hundred and
twenty thousand souls to one hundred and ninety thousand, of which
a fourth part derived their whole subsistence from charitable
institutions, while another fourth part received partial succor
from the same sources. At Haarlem, where the population had been
chiefly employed in bleaching and preparing linen made in Brabant,
whole streets were levelled with the ground, and more than five
hundred houses destroyed. At The Hague, at Delft, and in other
towns, many inhabitants had been induced to pull down their houses,
from inability to keep them in repair or pay the taxes. The
preservation of the dikes, requi