The chief city of the Netherlands, the commercial capital of the world,
was Antwerp. In the North and East of Europe, the Hanseatic league had
withered with the revolution in commerce. At the South, the splendid
marble channels, through which the overland India trade had been
conducted from the Mediterranean by a few stately cities, were now dry,
the great aqueducts ruinous and deserted. Verona, Venice, Nuremberg,
Augsburg, Bruges, were sinking, but Antwerp, with its deep and convenient
river, stretched its arm to the ocean and caught the golden prize, as it
fell from its sister cities' grasp. The city was so ancient that its
genealogists, with ridiculous gravity, ascended to a period two centuries
before the Trojan war, and discovered a giant, rejoicing in the classic
name of Antigonus, established on the Scheld. This patriarch exacted one
half the merchandise of all navigators who passed his castle, and was
accustomed to amputate and cast into the river the right hands of those
who infringed this simple tariff. Thus Hand-werpen, hand-throwing, became
Antwerp, and hence, two hands, in the escutcheon of the city, were ever
held up in heraldic attestation of the truth. The giant was, in his turn,
thrown into the Scheld by a hero, named Brabo, from whose exploits
Brabant derived its name; "de quo Brabonica tellus." But for these
antiquarian researches, a simpler derivation of the name would seem an t'
werf, "on the wharf." It had now become the principal entrepot and
exchange of Europe. The Huggers, Velsens, Ostetts, of Germany, the
Gualterotti and Bonvisi of Italy, and many other great mercantile houses
were there established. No city, except Paris, surpassed it in
population, none approached it in commercial splendor. Its government was
very free. The sovereign, as Marquis of Antwerp, was solemnly sworn to
govern according to the ancient charters and laws. The stadholder, as his
representative, shared his authority with the four estates of the city.
The Senate of eighteen members was appointed by the stadholder out of a
quadruple number nominated by the Senate itself and by the fourth body,