It seems formerly that Gentlemen by birth were those who from generation to generation were descended from free and honorable persons. These, being favoured by different Counts [of Holland], and especially by Count Floris, who was disliked by the nobles (which gave rise to a conspiracy against him and ultimately to his death), had a right to wear arms publicly, as a token of descent, to ride with a spur, and be exempt from taxes. At present [1620, in which yearGrotius wrote] all these matters, together with others, having become general by practice, the only distinction is, that those who are gentlemen born are selected as judges of the Bailiff's Court, in the place of vassals [or tenants], and were consequently exempt from serving in the office of schepens, or civic magistrates."

The Seven United Provinces were composed of the patroonships of nobles, cities, and towns, the two latter possessing municipal privileges, or rather, privileges as municipalities, similar to those possessed as individuals by the nobles. Both originated in the ancient Teutonic system of military tenures modified by the Roman law and the spirit of commercial enterprise. There were then in the United Provinces,' no small independent farms; isolated houses scattered through the country did not exist. The people dwelt in the towns and cities, and only the nobles on large estates in the country with great buildings, strongholds, and sometimes churches, to accommodate themselves and their numerous retainers whom they were bound to protect. In the single province of Holland alone, the largest of the seven provinces of the republic, there existed, and had existed for more than a century prior to the Discovery of New Netherland, three hundred of these Patroonships, or fiefs as they were called,' to the mutual advantage of their owners and their tenants or vassals, as the then flourishing and powerful condition of the Dutch republic fully proves.