More than all, by its trade with its arch-enemy, the republic constantly multiplied its resources for destroying his power and aggrandizing its own.
The war navy of the United Provinces was a regular force of one hundred ships--large at a period when a vessel of thirteen hundred tons was a monster--together with an indefinite number of smaller craft, which could be put into the public service on short notice?
In those days of close quarters and light artillery a merchant ship was converted into a cruiser by a very simple, process.

The navy was a self-supporting one, for it was paid by the produce of convoy fees and licenses to trade.

It must be confessed that a portion of these revenues savoured much of black-mail to be levied on friend and foe; for the distinctions between, freebooter, privateer, pirate, and legitimate sea-robber were not very closely drawn in those early days of seafaring.
Prince Maurice of Nassau was lord high admiral, but he was obliged to listen to the counsels of various provincial boards of admiralty, which often impeded his action and interfered with his schemes.
It cannot be denied that the inherent vice of the Netherland polity was already a tendency to decentralisation and provincialism.

The civil institutions of the country, in their main characteristics, have been frequently sketched in these pages.

At this period they had entered almost completely into the forms which were destined to endure until the commonwealth fell in the great crash of the French Revolution.