Their beneficial effects were more visible now--sustained and bound together as the nation was by the sense of a common danger, and by the consciousness of its daily developing strength--than at a later day when prosperity and luxury had blunted the fine instincts of patriotism.
The supreme power, after the deposition of Philip, and the refusal by France and by England to accept the sovereignty of the provinces, was definitely lodged in the States-General.

But the States-General did not technically represent the people.

Its members were not elected by the people.

It was a body composed of, delegates from each provincial assembly, of which there were now five: Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Utrecht, and Gelderland.

Each provincial assembly consisted again of delegates, not from the inhabitants of the provinces, but from the magistracies of the cities.