transplanted to the soil of freedom, more congenial to the advancement of
art. Brocades of the precious metals; splendid satins and velvets;
serges and homely fustians; laces of thread and silk; the finer and
coarser manufactures of clay and porcelain; iron, steel, and all useful
fabrics for the building and outfitting of ships; substantial broadcloths
manufactured of wool imported from Scotland--all this was but a portion
of the industrial production of the provinces.

They supplied the deficiency of coal, not then an article readily
obtained by commerce, with other remains of antediluvian forests long
since buried in the sea, and now recovered from its depths and made
useful and portable by untiring industry. Peat was not only the fuel
for the fireside, but for the extensive fabrics of the country, and its
advantages so much excited the admiration of the Venetian envoys that
they sent home samples of it, in the hope that the lagunes of Venice
might prove as prolific of this indispensable article as the polders of
Holland.

But the foundation of the national wealth, the source of the apparently
fabulous power by which the republic had at last overthrown her gigantic
antagonist, was the ocean. The republic was sea-born and sea-sustained.

She had nearly one hundred thousand sailors, and three thousand ships.
The sailors were the boldest, the best disciplined, and the most
experienced in the-world, whether for peaceable seafaring or ocean
warfare. The ships were capable of furnishing from out of their number
in time of need the most numerous and the best appointed navy then known
to mankind.

The republic had the carrying trade for all nations. Feeling its very