a year, by the council of state, and voted by the States-General, who
assigned the quota of each province; that of Holland being always one-
half of the whole, that of Zeeland sixteen per cent., and that of the
other five of course in lesser proportions. The revenue was collected
in the separate provinces, one-third of the whole being retained for
provincial expenses, and the balance paid into the general treasury.
There was a public debt, the annual interest of which amounted to 200,000
florins. During the war, money had been borrowed at as high a rate as
thirty-six per cent., but at the conclusion of hostilities the States
could borrow at six per cent., and the whole debt was funded on that
basis. Taxation was enormously heavy, but patriotism caused it to be
borne with cheerfulness, and productive industry made it comparatively
light. Rents were charged twenty-five per cent. A hundred per cent. was
levied upon beer, wine, meat, salt, spirits. Other articles of necessity
and luxury were almost as severely taxed. It is not easy to enumerate
the tax-list, scarcely anything foreign or domestic being exempted, while
the grave error was often committed of taxing the same article, in
different forms, four, five, and six times.

The people virtually taxed themselves, although the superstition
concerning the State, as something distinct from and superior to the
people, was to linger long and work infinite mischief among those seven
republics which were never destined to be welded theoretically and
legally into a union. The sacredness of corporations had succeeded,
in a measure, to the divinity which hedges kings. Nevertheless, those
corporations were so numerous as to be effectively open to a far larger
proportion of the population than, in those days, had ever dreamed before
of participating in the Government. The magistracies were in general
unpaid and little coveted, being regarded as a burthen and a
responsibility rather than an object of ambition. The jurisconsults,