Their territory contains six entire Provinces; Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Groningen, Overyssel, and Friesland, besides three parts of Guelderland, and certain towns in Brabant and Flanders: the ground of which is, for the most part, fruitful; the towns nowhere are so _equally_ beautiful, strong, and rich: which equality grows by reason that they appropriate some one staple commodity to every town of note; only Amsterdam not only passeth them all, but even Seville, Lisbon, or any other Mart Town in Christendom. And to it, is appropriated the trade of the East Indies, where they maintain commonly forty ships; besides which, there go, twice a year, from it and the adjoining towns, a great fleet to the Baltic sea. Upon the fall of Antwerp, that [town of Amsterdam] rose, rather than Middleburgh; though it [_that_] stands at the same river's mouth, and is the second Mart Town; to which is appropriated our English cloth. Concerning the people. They are neither much devout, nor much wicked; given all to drink, and, eminently, to no other vice; hard in bargaining, but just; surly, and respectless, as in all democracies; thirsty [?_thrifty_], industrious, and cleanly; disheartened upon the least ill-success, and insolent upon good; inventive in manufactures; cunning in traffic. And generally, for matter of action, that natural slowness of theirs suits better (by reason of the advisedness and perseverance it brings with it) than the rashness and changeableness of the French and Florentine wits. And the equality of spirits which is among them and the Swiss, renders them so fit for a Democracy; which kind of Government, nations, of more unstable wits, being once come to a Consistent Greatness, have seldom long endured. [Illustration] _Observations upon the State of the_ _Archduke's Country, 1609._ By Sir THOMAS OVERBURY. As soon as I entered into the Archduke's country, which begins after Lillow; presently, I beheld [the] works of a Province, and those of a Province distressed with war. The people heartless; and rather repining against their Governors than revengeful against their enemies. The bravery of that gentry which was left, and the industry of the merchant, quite decayed. The husbandman labouring only to live, without desire to be rich to another's use. The towns (whatsoever concerned not the strength of them) ruinous. And, to conclude, the people here growing poor with less taxes, than they flourish with on the States' side.