It was also a strikingly conservative as well as effective form of government, and after the termination of the twelve years truce with Spain in l(j21,it enabled the Netherlands to carry on that brilliant series of hostilities against Spain which, in 1G48, resulted in her final acknowledgment of the United Provinces as an Independent Nation.' Subsequently to that event the Republic enlarged and increased the machinery of her government -- developing it further upon the same principles to meet the enlarged sphere of action upon which she had entered, but this ic is unnecessary to describe here.

There was in this system of government one principle which must be particularly noticed, one which has had but scant mention from American historians, and yet upon it rests the system of colonization begun by the Dutch in New Netherland, and that is the rights, powers, privileges, and position of the nobles of the Netherlands in the government of their native land.

The Dutch people of the United Provinces at the date of Hudson's discovery of New Netherland, and during the period of its settlement and possession by that Republic consisted, by their own law, of two classes, "Nobles" and "Commoners." The Commoners were subdivided into "Gentlemen by birth," and "Common people." Thus practically making three classes of Dutch citizens.

They are thus described, and the definition of each given, by the most famous of the great lawyers of Holland ;-- *

"From descent comes the distinction whereby some are born Noble and some Commoners.