This is the date of the full liberty of the Dutch commonwealth.
* An annuity of fourteen thousand pounds during fifteen years, money being at ten per cent., is worth, on computation, only one hundred and six thousand five hundred pounds; whereas the king received two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

Yet the bargain was good for the Dutch, as well as the king; because they were both of them freed from the maintenance of useless garrisons.
** Rushworth, vol.i.p.

3.
{1617.} When the crown of England devolved on James, it might have been foreseen by the Scottish nation, that the independence of their kingdom, the object for which their ancestors had shed so much blood, would now be lost; and that, if both states persevered in maintaining separate laws and parliaments, the weaker would more sensibly feel the subjection, than if it had been totally subdued by force of arms.
But these views did not generally occur.

The glory of having given a sovereign to their powerful enemy, the advantages of present peace and tranquillity, the riches acquired from the munificence of their master; these considerations secured their dutiful obedience to a prince who daily gave such sensible proofs of his friendship and partiality towards them.

Never had the authority of any king who resided among them, been so firmly established as was that of James, even when absent; and as the administration had been hitherto conducted with great order and tranquillity, there had happened no occurrence to draw thither our attention.