The imports to Europe were indigo, coffee, sugar, hides, cotton, dye-wood, tortoiseshell, varinas, Porto Rico tobacco, and occasionally cochineal. The Dutch also carried on a very flourishing trade to Turkey and the Levant, by selling their own, the Irish and English cloths, and purchasing tea, cocoa, ginger, and thread. The commercial intercourse also between Holland and England was very important, in which the balance in specie was greatly against the Dutch, which induced many, who were ignorant of their real character, to conclude, that they never could support so prodigious a drain of specie as they have invariably experienced in such communications; an impression which subsides when it is considered that the Dutch consumed but little of what they imported from England, and that what they purchased they resold in an improved condition to other countries. A nation can only become rich from trade when its exports for the use of foreign states is in a greater proportion than its imports for its own consumption. An impression has gone forth, that a nation cannot be impoverished if the importation of foreign merchandize be purchased abroad by native commodity and not with specie; whereas upon a nation striking the balance of her account with the country she may have dealt with, it will be found that the deficiency on the side of her exportation must be made up in specie. Hence an industrious and frugal people like the Dutch will, when their country is in a state of tranquillity, possess great advantages over most other nations. Industry increases the native commodity, whether it arises from the soil or the manufacture, and increases the exportation. Frugality will lessen the consumption, and of course increase the exportation of native, and reduce the importation of foreign produce, for home consumption. The excess of all native commodities is sure of a market, of which those who can sell the cheapest will be the masters: hence a frugal and industrious people will be able to live and accumulate, where those who are neither could not live. This spirit of industry and frugality has been for ages, and still continues to be the guardian of this nation, by which it was enabled to support its many, long, and costly wars, and finally to force the king of Spain, its ancient master, to recognise its independent sovereignty. Although the Hollanders, before the last war, were the undisputed proprietors of the Indian spices, of the silks of India and China, and of the fine cotton manufactures of Indostan, till a period at no great distance the common people wore plain woollen cloth, and fed on fish and vegetables. So universally powerful was this propensity to economy, that formerly the common people, and even opulent merchants, never changed their fashions, and left off their clothes only because they were worn out. They have been known to purchase the coarse English cloth for their own wear, and sell their own fine Leyden cloths