HOLLAND. 41 1 



five towns, and the people in what are called the Lands of the Gene- 

 rality, or conquered countries and towns of other parts of the Ne- 

 therlands. The population of 1809 is given in the table of divisions. 

 Since then the destruction of commerce has continued very much to 

 reduce the number of inhabitants. In IS 11 they had decreased to 

 1,881,880. 



National character, manners, customs. ...The manners, habits, 

 and even the minds of the Dutch (for so the inhabitants of the Unit- 

 ed Provinces are in general called) seem to be formed by their situa- 

 tion, and to arise from their natural wants. Their country, which is 

 preserved by mounds and dykes, is a perpetual incentive to labour; 

 and the artificial drains, with which it is every where intersected, 

 must be kept in perpetual repair. Even what may be called their 

 natural commodities, their butter and cheese, are produced by a con- 

 stant attention to the laborious parts of life. Their principal food 

 they earn out of the sea, by their herring fisheries ; for they dispose 

 of most of their valuable fish to the English, and other nations, for 

 the sake of gain. The air and temperature of their climate incline 

 them to phlegmatic, slow dispositions, both of body and mind; and 

 yet they are irascible, especially if heated with liquor. Even their 

 virtues are owing to their coldness with regard to every object that 

 does not immediately concern their own interests; for, in all other 

 respects, they are quiet neighbours and peaceable subjects. 



The valour of the Dutch becomes warm and active, when they be- 

 lieve their interests at stake; witness their sea-wars with England 

 and France. Their boors, though slow of understanding, are ma- 

 nageable by fair means. Their seamen are plain, blunt, but rough, 

 surly, and an ill-natured sort of people, and appear to be insensible of 

 public spirit and affection for each other. Their tradesmen in general 

 are reckoned honest in their dealings, and very sparing of their words. 

 Smoking tobacco is practised by the old and young, of both sexes ; 

 and as they are generally plodding upon ways and means of getting 

 money, no people are so unsociable. A Dutchman of low rank, when 

 drunk, is guilty of every species of brutality. The Dutch have also 

 been known to exercise the most dreadful inhumanities for interest 

 abroad, where they thought themselves free from discovery ; but they 

 are in general quiet and inoffensive in their own country, which exhi- 

 bits but few instances of murder, rapine, or violence. As to the ha- 

 bitual tippling and drinking charged upon both sexes, it is owing, in 

 a great measure, to the nature of their soil and climate. In general, all 

 "appetites and passions seem to run lower and cooler here than in most 

 other countries, that of avarice excepted. Their tempers are not airy 

 enough for joy, or any unusual strains of pleasant humour ; nor warm 

 enough for love ; so that the softer passions seem no natives of this 

 country ; and love itself is little better than a mechanical affection, 

 arising from interest, convenience, or habit ; it is talked of sometimes 

 among the young men, but as a thing they have heard of, rather 

 than felt, and as a discourse that becomes them, rather than affects 

 them. 



In whatever relates to the management of pecuniary affairs, the 

 Dutch are certainly the most expert of any people ; as, to the know- 

 ledge of acquiring wealth, they unite the no less necessary science 

 of preserving it. It is a kind of general rule for every man to spend 

 less than his income, be that what it will ; nor does it often enter into 

 the heads of this sagacious people, that the common course of ex- 



