militia of the sea, who had learned in their life of hardship and daring
the art of destroying Spanish and Portuguese armadas, and confronting the
dangers of either pole, passed a long season on the deep. Commercial
voyagers as well as fishermen, they salted their fish as soon as taken
from the sea, and transported them to the various ports of Europe, thus
reducing their herrings into specie before their return, and proving that
a fishery in such hands was worth more than the mines of Mexico and Peru.

It is customary to speak of the natural resources of a country as
furnishing a guarantee of material prosperity. But here was a republic
almost without natural resources, which had yet supplied by human
intelligence and thrift what a niggard nature had denied. Spain was
overflowing with unlimited treasure, and had possessed half the world in
fee; and Spain was bankrupt, decaying, sinking into universal pauperism.
Holland, with freedom of thought, of commerce, of speech, of action,
placed itself, by intellectual power alone, in the front rank of
civilization.

From Cathay, from the tropical coasts of Africa, and from farthest Ind,
came every drug, spice, or plant, every valuable jewel, every costly
fabric, that human ingenuity had discovered or created. The Spaniards,
maintaining a frail tenure upon a portion of those prolific regions,
gathered their spice harvests at the point of the sword, and were
frequently unable to prevent their northern rivals from ravaging such
fields as they had not yet been able to appropriate.

Certainly this conduct of the Hollanders was barbarism and supreme
selfishness, if judged by the sounder political economy of our time.
Yet it should never be forgotten that the contest between Spain and
Holland in those distant regions, as everywhere else, was war to the