The distinctions between political classes are very strongly marked and preserved in Holland. We were informed, that there are some villages, in which the wearing of a cockade, and others, in which the want of one, would expose a passenger, especially a native, to insults. In the cities, where those of both parties must transact business together, the distinction is not much observed. In Amsterdam, the friends of the Stadtholder do not wear cockades. For the most part, the seamen, farmers and labouring classes in the towns are attached to the Orange family, whose opponents are chiefly composed of the opulent merchants and tradesmen. A history, or even a description of the two parties, if we were enabled to give it, would occupy too much space here; but it may be shortly mentioned, that the original, or chief cause of the dissension was, as might be expected, entirely of a commercial nature. The English interest had an unanimous popularity in Holland, about the year 1750. In the war of 1756, the French, having sustained a great loss of shipping, employed Dutch vessels to bring the produce of their American islands to Europe, and thus established a considerable connection with the merchants of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Court of Versailles took care, that the stream of French wealth, which they saw setting into the United Provinces, should carry with it some French politics; while the wealth itself effected more than all their contrivance, and gradually produced a kindness for France, especially in the province of Holland, through which it chiefly circulated. The English Ministers took all Dutch ships, having French property on board; and the popularity of England was for a time destroyed. Several maritime towns, probably with some instigation from France, demanded a war against England. The friends of the Stadtholder prevented this; and from that time the Prince began to share whatever unpopularity the measures of the English Ministers, or the industry of the English traders, could excite in a rival and a commercial country. The capture of the French West India islands soon after removed the cause of the dispute; but the effects of it survived in the jealousy of the great cities towards the Stadtholder, and were much aggravated by the losses of their merchants, at the commencement of hostilities between England and the United Provinces, in 1780. The Dutch fleet being then unprepared to sail, and every thing, which could float, having been sent out of the harbours of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to intercept their trading ships, the fortunes of many of the most opulent houses in Holland were severely shook, and all their members became the enemies of the Stadtholder.