and more than a refuge, a recognition, when recognition was a
dangerous offence.

"There is no nation in Europe," continues the professor, "which
owes more to Holland than Great Britain does. The English were
for a long time, in the industrial history of modern civilization,
the stupidest and most backward nation in Europe. There was, to
be sure, a great age in England during the reign of Elizabeth
and that of the first Stuart king. But it was brief indeed. In
every other department of art, of agriculture, of trade, we learned
our lesson from the Hollanders. I doubt whether any other small
European race, after passing through the trials which it endured
after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to the conclusion of the
continental war, ever had so entire a recovery. The chain of its
history, to be sure, was broken, and can never, in the nature
of things, be welded together. But there is still left to Holland
the boast and the reality of her motto, 'Luctor et emergo.'"

The events of Holland's history since the Catholic concessions
can be briefly told. In 1863 slavery was abolished in the Dutch
West Indies, the owners being compensated; and forty-two thousand
slaves were set free, chiefly in Dutch Guiana. In the same year
the navigation of the Scheldt was freed, by purchase from Holland
by the European powers, of the right to levy tolls. In 1867, Louis
Napoleon raised the question of Luxemburg by negotiating to buy
the grand duchy from Holland; but Prussia objected to the scheme,
and the matter was finally settled by a Conference in London; the
Prussian garrison evacuating the fortifications, which were then
dismantled, and Luxemburg was declared neutral territory. Capital
punishment was abolished in 1869; and on the 15th of July of the
same year the Amsterdam National Exposition was opened by Prince
Henry. In 1870, at the outbreak of war between Germany and France,
the neutrality of Holland as to both belligerents was secured by
the other Powers. In 1871 the Hollanders ceded Dutch Guinea to
England, and in 1876 the canal between Amsterdam and the North
Sea, which had been begun in 1865, was completed, and the passage
through it was accomplished by a monitor. Another Exposition was
opened in 1883, and in the same year the constitution underwent
a further revision. On the 24th of June, 1884, the Prince of
Orange, heir-apparent to the throne, died, and the succession
thus devolved upon the princess Wilhelmina, then a child of