Indeed, some years before the peace, while the coalition was still maintaining Carlos, a treaty was made with the latter by the British minister, unknown to the Dutch, practically giving the British monopoly of Spanish trade in America; sharing it only with Spaniards, which was pretty much the same as not sharing it at all.

This treaty accidentally became known, and made a great impression on the Dutch; but England was then so necessary to the coalition that she ran no risk of being left out by its other members.

The gain which Holland made by land was that of military occupation only, of certain fortified places in the Austrian Netherlands, known to history as the "barrier towns;" nothing was added by them to her revenue, population, or resources; nothing to that national strength which must underlie military institutions.

Holland had forsaken, perhaps unavoidably, the path by which she had advanced to wealth and to leadership among nations.

The exigencies of her continental position had led to the neglect of her navy, which in those days of war and privateering involved a loss of carrying-trade and commerce: and although she held her head high through the war, the symptoms of weakness were apparent in her failing armaments.