But if England was drawn to the sea, Holland was driven to it; without the sea England languished, but Holland died.

In the height of her greatness, when she was one of the chief factors in European politics, a competent native authority estimated that the soil of Holland could not support more than one eighth of her inhabitants.

The manufactures of the country were then numerous and important, but they had been much later in their growth than the shipping interest.

The poverty of the soil and the exposed nature of the coast drove the Dutch first to fishing.

Then the discovery of the process of curing the fish gave them material for export as well as home consumption, and so laid the corner-stone of their wealth.