I find that Kasper van Baerle wrote: "What then do we Netherlanders speak?
Words from a foreign tongue: we are but a collected crowd, of feline origin, driven by a strange fatality to these mouths of the Rhine.

Why, since the mighty descendants of Romulus here pitched their tents, choose we not rather the holy language of the Romans!" We may consider Dutch a harsh tongue, and prefer that all foreigners should learn English; but our dislike of Dutch is as nothing compared with Dutch dislike of French as expressed in some verses by Bilderdyk when the tyranny of Napoleon threatened them:-- Begone, thou bastard-tongue! so base--so broken-- By human jackals and hyenas spoken; Formed of a race of infidels, and fit To laugh at truth--and scepticise in wit; What stammering, snivelling sounds, which scarcely dare, Bravely through nasal channel meet the ear-- Yet helped by apes' grimaces--and the devil, Have ruled the world, and ruled the world for evil! But French is now the second language that is taught in Dutch schools.

German comes first and English third.
The Dutch language often resembles English very closely; sometimes so closely as to be ridiculous.

For example, to an English traveller who has been manoeuvring in vain for some time in the effort to get at the value of an article, it comes as a shock comparable only to being run over by a donkey cart to discover that the Dutch for "What is the price ?" is "Wat is de prijs ?" The best old Dutch phrase-book is _The English Schole-Master_, the copy of which that lies before me was printed at Amsterdam by John Houman in the year 1658.

I have already quoted a short passage from it, in Chapter II.