lish and a Dutch scholar. It is the famous controversy between the Mare Liberum of Hugo Grotius and the Mare Clausum of John Selden.

John Selden (1584-1654) was one of the greatest scholars, one of the best defenders of the people's liberties, one of the most able members of Parliament, that ever lived in England. Some of the authors who write about him, will tell us that he was not in favor of Democracy, but they do not understand that a man. may be of the highest aristocratic spirit, and be living exclusively with men of high learning, and high standing, and yet be one of the best defenders of the rights of the people.

But in the controversy with Grotius, Selden made. the great mistake of his life. He declared in his Mare Clausum, that "the sea as much as the land is the subject of private property," and more especially that England owned that property to a considerable extent, while Grotius defended the freedom of the open

sea.

With Grotius the Mare Liberum was originally only a chapter in his great work De jure Praedae Commentarius, which formed the fundamental conception of his later work, De jure belli ac pacis, which is considered now all over the world as the foundation of international law, and which gave to the name of Hugo Grotius an imperishable fame.1 Selden's book was only a single study in that field, written at the command of James I and Charles I; King Charles was very much pleased with it, and although this is no great compliment for Selden, it was no reason for another Dutch juris consult of fame, Graswinckiel, to accuse Selden of writing the book to get out of prison. Selden gave a due answer to Graswinckel in his Vindiciae, a short time before he died, in 1654.

1 Cf. R. Fruin, Verspreide Geschriften, III, 367-445.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE TIME OF THE ANGLO-DUTCH WARS.

DRYDEN, ANDREW MARVELL AND EDMUND

WALLER

JOHN

The seventeenth century was the most glorious time for the Dutch Republic. The Dutch flag was on all seas, Dutch colonies were found in every corner of the globe; the riches accumulated in the cities of Holland was for those times beyond all imagination; art and literature flourished under the protection of wealthy business men, and names like those of Rembrandt and Van Dyck, Vondel and Cats were being added to the list of world-famous men; admirals like Tromp and DeRuyter maintained the respect which was due to the sturdy Republic; generals, like the Princes of Orange, made their armies a trainingschool for the best soldiers in Europe. The Northern Provinces, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with their wealthy cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam, were worthy successors of the cities of the Southern Netherlands in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries and even excelled them by far. In a city like Brughes, it happened in the year 1301, that the queen of France, sitting at a dinner party, made the remark, "I thought that I alone was the queen here, but I see that all the ladies here are queens." But in Amsterdam it happened that a foreign prince while taking dinner with the magistrates, asked one of his neighbors at the table if there were any nobles there,

and received as an answer, "We are all princes here." Holland "had reached the height of power, prosperity and glory. The Batavian territory, conquered from the waves, and defended against them by human art, was in extent little superior to the principality of Wales. But all that narrow space was a busy and populous hive, in which new wealth was every day created, and in which vast masses of old wealth were hoarded. The aspect of Holland, the rich cultivation, the innumerable canals, the ever whirling mills, the endless fleets of barges, the numerous clusters of great towns, the ports bristling with thousands of masts, the large and stately mansions, the trim villas, the richly furnished apartments, the picture galleries, the summer-houses, the tulip-beds, produced on English travelers in that age an effect similar to the effect, which the first sight of England now produces on a Norwegian or a Canadian." That foreigners who travelled in Holland during the seventeenth century were profoundly impressed by its tremendous wealth and power is evident from contemporary English writers such as Evelyn in his Diary (published London, 1818), and William Temple, and from an anonymous pamphlet, published in 1664, entitled, "The Dutch Drawn to the Life," and another work, A Late Voyage to Holland, which was published in 1691.3

But this glorious position of Holland, leading the nations of Europe in civilization, in trade, in industry, in art, and last, but not least, in politics, was not destined to endure. England's trade and power were now growing very fast, and because Cromwell made. up his mind either to unite the Dutch Republic with the English Commonwealth, or to conquer the Dutch

1 Macaulay, History of England, Vol. I, p. 188.

2 A copy of this pamphlet is in the University Library at Leyden. 3 Harleian miscellany, Vol. II.

on the sea, and because the Dutch could not accept the former alternative, there was left for Holland only one choice, viz., a struggle against England for the empire of the waves. Cromwell's navigation acts gave the first, but at the same time, the fatal stroke to Holland's supremacy on the sea.1 Since that time England grew in power very fast and Holland declined. Only once more, and that in confederation with England, did Holland lead the politics of the world. It was under William the Third, Prince of Orange, stadholder of Holland and King of England, when Louis XIV of France threatened all Protestantism with complete extirpation, and this great Prince, a statesman and general of such ability that the world's history knows only a few like him, at the head of Holland and England, frustrated all the plans of the French King, delivered England from the tyranny of the Stuarts, and dominated all the factions that weakened the United Netherlands.

The Dutch-English wars were begun for no other reason "but that the Hollanders exceeded us in commerce and industries, and in all things but envy" as Evelyn wrote on June 2, 1672. This constant envy, and the wars brought about a bad feeling between the two nations, which is easily perceived, and is apparent in the literature of both nations during the period. Patriotism received an evil development and was exaggerated to the limit, and in such cases some literary men are always found who are eager to please public opinion.

There was, indeed, an opportunity for a man like

1 Like John Dryden, writing poems for his daily bread, said in his stanzas on Oliver Cromwell:

"He (viz. Cromwell) made us freemen of the continent
Whom nature did like captives treat before;

To nobler preys the English lion sent,

And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar."

John Dryden (1631-1700), a man "who made writing a trade." "He was quick to feel what the public wanted and he showed no scruples in adapting his wares to the popular demand." Dryden's ability was great, indeed, and from the death of Milton in 1674, till his own in 1700, he reigned undisputed; and sat on his throne in Will's Coffeehouse, as "glorious John," surrounded by several of the minor poets, and writers of his time; but at the same time the moral danger of the influence of his character, or rather of his lack of character, has been felt ever since, and is warned against by every author to the present day. In the days of Cromwell, he praised the Lord Protector; after the restoration, he celebrated the return of the Stuarts, and when the Catholic James II ascended the throne, Dryden wrote his Hind and Panther, glorifying the Church of Rome. No wonder that this man, as he felt that the envy and competition between the English and the Dutch nations was growing, inspired himself with a hatred against the Dutch, that knew no limit. His tragedy, Amboyna, gives the proof. The full title is: Amboyna, or the Cruelties of the Dutch to the English Merchants, a Tragedy, 1672. His subject is the story of some Englishmen on the Dutch isle of Amboyna in East India, who were accused of conspiring to overpower the Dutch government of the isle, were arrested, convicted and executed. The story as related in Dutch and English books seems to be different and the truth is difficult to find out; but there is no difference of opinion as to this tragedy of Dryden. According to the authors of the best edition of Dryden's works, Sir Walter Scott and George Saintsbury, "the play is beneath criticism" and, says Scott, "I can hardly hesitate to

1 Henry Pancoast and P. van Dyke Shelly, English Literature,

p. 227.