Wk. 3 Primary Source William Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1673)

Question 1

William Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1673)

Answer 1

William Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1673) – No European society was more affected by global trade in the seventeenth century than the Netherlands. It was the first country in world history to have a majority of its population living in cities rather than the countryside. William Temple (1628-1699), an English diplomat stationed there, wrote a description of the Netherlands that is excerpted here.

How did he describe Dutch society?

• The culture of the Netherlands on ALL levels is one of frugality, living within their rmeans and leaving enough to pay the high taxes. “There are some customs, or dispositions, that seem to run generally through all these degrees of men among them: as great frugality and order in their expenses. Their common riches lie in every man’s having more than he spends”
• The Dutch, overall, are more concerned with the accumulation of wealth than all else. “Holland is a Country where profit is more in request than honor”
• They are a tiny country with a massive economic impact and presence throughout the world. “upon record of any history, where so vast a trade has been managed as in the narrow compass of the four maritime provinces of this Commonwealth. Nay, it is generally esteemed that they have more shipping belonging to them than there does to all the rest of Europe.”
• Even more amazing because they have no natural resources of their own. “Yet they have no native commodities towards the building or rigging of the smallest vessel, their flax, hemp, pitch, wood, and iron coming all from abroad”
• Wonders why the Dutch are so industrious – theorizes that it is because of the population in such a small space, they are forced to look outward for the supply to their demand. (A concept that makes no sensse today as there are many densely populated countries/regions that are completely nonindustrious).“we talk of industry, we are still as much to seek what it is that makes people industrious in one country and idle in another.” “…they naturally break out into trade, both because whatever they want of their own that is necessary to so many men’s lives must be supplied from abroad and because by the multitude of people and smalness of country land grows so dear that the improvement of money that way is inconsiderable”
• Lists the reasons for this industriousness:
  
  • Use of banks
  • Merchant fleets everywhere
  • low import and export taxes
  • government partly composed of tradesmen or families of tradesmen (remember, merchants would marry their children to the Renteeners)
  • Each won specialized in a particular good to which they reached the greatest heights.
  • The Dutch have dominated the East Indies with the “East India Company” to great success and to the exclusion of other nations.
  • They remain simple and sell the luxuries. “they furnish infinite luxury, which they never practise, and traffic in pleasures, which they never taste.”

How was it different from other, more agrarian, European societies?

• The Dutch had to rely on externall sources for ALL needs. and the lack of recources forced the NEtherlands to become industrious to fulfill those needs unlike Ireland, for example, which had tons of land and required little work to produce their needs.“This cannot be better illustrated than by its contrary, which appears no where more than in Ireland. Where by the largeness and plenty of the soil and scarcity of people, all things necessary to life are so cheap that an industrious man by two days labor may gain enough to feed him the rest of the week. Which I take to be a very plain ground of the laziness attributed to the people: for men naturally prefer ease before Labor, and will not take pains if they can live idle.”

What was the relationship between these differences and trade?

• The differences in available natural resources drove the Netherlands’ pursuit of trade.

Other Notes:

• There were distinct classes – each working toward the same goal.
• Boors (Farmers)
  
  • Simple and work the land, not too bright but accept reason.“…diligent rather than laborious, dull and slow of understanding, and so not dealt with by hasty words but managed easily by soft and fair; and yielding to plain reason if you give them time to understand it.”
• Mariners
  
  • Also simple but rougher. Brave in doing their jobs, which can be dangerous. “plain, but much rougher, people…their valor is passive rather than active; and their language is little more than what is of necessary use to their business.”
• Merchants/Tradesmen
  
  • Smarter and more worldly. “wit being sharpened by commerce and conversation of cities.”
  • They take advantage of those less smart than they. “They make use of their skill and their wit to take advantage of other men’s ignorance and folly”
  • They treat those of equal IQ fairly. “where they deal with men that understand like themselves and are under the reach of justice and laws, they are the plainest and best dealers in the world”
  • Overall, are not a particularly trustworthy lot as they have one thing on their mind, the accumulation of wealth. “…not to grow so much from a principle of conscience or morality, as from a custom or habit introduced by the necessity of trade among them”
• Renteeners
  
  • Are people of long-standing families who are well-educated and practical. “…families which live upon their patrimonial estates in all the great cities [the renteeners] are a people differently bred and mannered from the traders”
  • They are relecutant to spend money unnecessarily. “n the modesty of garb and habit, and the parsimony of living”
  • They have typically been the ones to dominate government. “The chief end of their breeding [education], is to make them fit for the service of their country in the Magistracy…”
  • Though Renteeners were the usual government officials, Merchants would also sometimes get into political office. “This does not exclude many merchants from being often seen in the Offices”
  • Renteeners, though in positions of power, rarely gained great wealth. Instead settling on ‘honor’ as their compensation. “Nor do these families, habituated as it were to the Magistracy of their towns and provinces, usually arrive at great or excessive riches. The salaries of public employments and interest being low” “They content themselves with the honor of being useful to the public, with the esteem of their cities or their country”
  • The true wealth came to the merchants in the age of globalization. “The mighty growth and excess of riches is seen among the merchants and traders”
  • Merchants also married off their sons to the Renteeners to gain political honor and esteem, likely to benefit them in trade. “when they attain great wealth, chose to breed up their sons in the way, and marry their daughters into, the families of those others most generally credited in their towns and versed in their Magistracies [i.e. the renteeners].”
  • • Nobility – only notes that they are the“officers of their armies”