The burgher class of Europe is not the one that has been foremost in the revolutionary movements of history, or that has distinguished itself--especially in more modern times--by a passionate love of liberty.

It is always easy to sneer at Hans Miller and Hans Baker, and at the country where such plebeians are powerful.

Yet the burghers played a prominent part in the great drama which forms my theme, and there has rarely been seen a more solid or powerful type of their class than the burgher statesman, John of Olden-Barneveld, who, since the death of William the Silent and the departure of Lord Leicester, had mainly guided the destinies of Holland.

Certainly no soldier nor statesman who ever measured intellects with that potent personage was apt to treat his genius otherwise than with profound respect.
But it is difficult to form a logical theory of government except on the fiction of divine right as a basis, unless the fact of popular sovereignty, as expressed by a majority, be frankly accepted in spite of philosophical objections.
In the Netherlands there was no king, and strictly speaking no people.
But this latter and fatal defect was not visible in the period of danger and of contest.

The native magistrates of that age were singularly pure, upright, and patriotic.