The States, in the memory of the merry milkmaid's good service to the country, ordered the farmer a large revenue for ever, to recompense his loss of house, land, and cattle; caused the coin of the city to have the milkmaid under her cow to be engraven, which is to be seen upon the Dort dollar, stivers, and doights to this day; and so she is set upon the water gate of Dort; and she had, during her life, and her's for ever, an allowance of fifty pounds per annum.

A noble requital for a virtuous action." Dort's great day of prosperity is over; but once she was the richest town in Holland--a result due to the privilege of the Staple.

In other words, she obtained the right to act as intermediary between the rest of Holland and the outer world in connection with all the wine, corn, timber and whatever else might be imported by way of the Rhine.

At Dort the cargoes were unloaded.

For some centuries she enjoyed this privilege, and then in 1618 Rotterdam began to resent it so acutely as to take to arms, and the financial prosperity of the town, which would be tenable only by the maintenance of a fleet, steadily crumbled.