But while the treatment was immeasurably better, the vicious principle of separation remained. The Jews in Holland were as much a nation apart, in theory at least, as in Spain and Portugal before the expulsion. They did not enjoy the full rights of citizenship (until they received it, somewhat against their will, during the French invasion at the end of the eighteenth century) and were not even free from other restrictions. They were not permitted to serve in the train bands or militia of the cities, but paid a compensation for their exemption therefrom. The prohibition of intermarriage with Christians could hardly be considered a hardship for Jews of the seventeenth century; but the fact that they were not allowed any mechanical pursuit or to engage in retail trade has a much deeper significance. It explains, at least partly, why the Dutch succeeded where the Portuguese failed, notably in that Indian trade, whose interruption by the Turkish conquest of Constantinople was the cause of searching new water routes to the East and of the discovery of the New World. Having exiled their best international traders and kept those remaining as Marranos in constant terror, the Portuguese could not derive the full benefit from that lucrative trade in spices which was to be the reward of their great discoveries. When the sixty years’ captivity――as the domination of Spain over Portugal, from 1580 to 1640, is called――brought, among other disasters, the capture of the Portuguese Indian possessions by the Dutch, the superiority of the latter’s methods were soon apparent. They succeeded with more ease “since, with true commercial spirit, they not only imported merchandise from the East to Holland, but also distributed it through Dutch merchants to every country in Europe; whereas the Portuguese in the days of their commercial monopoly were satisfied with bringing over the commodities to Lisbon and letting foreign nations come to fetch them.” It is not difficult to surmise who were those Dutch merchants who distributed the spices to every country in Europe, when we think of that class of wealthy Marrano immigrants in Holland who were not permitted to follow mechanical pursuits or to engage in retail trade. Holland’s tendency was clearly apparent. The Jews, mostly Portuguese, were permitted to use their wealth, their abilities and their foreign connections to carry on and extend that trade which languished in the hands of those who banished them. The Jews were exceedingly grateful for the opportunity which Holland afforded them to be useful to themselves and to her, and the very effective results of the friendship between the Jews and the Dutch were soon apparent in the ensuing struggle between the latter and the Portuguese over the possession of Brazil.