were held at the Hague in the same building with the Estates of Holland, and that the Council-Pensionary of Holland was the spokesman of the province in the States-General.  The States-General had control of the foreign affairs of the Union.  To them belonged the supreme control of military and naval matters.  The Captain-General and Admiral-General of the Union were appointed by them; and a deputation of the States-General accompanied the army into the field and the commanders were bound to consult it.  They exercised a strong supervision of finance, and sovereign authority over the entire administration of the “Generality” lands.  Ambassadors were appointed by them, also the Treasurer-General of the Union, and numerous other important officials.  Yet with all these attributes and powers the States-General possessed only a derived, not an inherent, authority.  To foreigners the sovereignty of the republic of the United Netherlands appeared to be vested in their “High-Mightinesses.”  In reality the States-General was, as already stated, a gathering of deputations from the seven sovereign provinces.  Each deputation voted as a unit; and in all important affairs of peace and war, treaties and finance, there must be no dissentient.  A single province, however small, could, by obstinate opposition, block the way to the acceptance of any given proposal.  Moreover the members, despite their lofty designation as High-Mightinesses, did not vote according to their convictions or persuasions, but according to the charge they had received from their principals.  The deputation of a province had no right to sanction any disputable measure or proposal without referring it back to the Estates of that province for approval or disapproval.  Hence arose endless opportunities and occasions for friction and dissension and manifold delays in the transaction of the business of the republic, oftentimes in a manner inimical to its vital interests.

The Provincial Estates in their turn were by no means homogeneous or truly representative bodies.  In Holland the nobles had one vote; and eighteen towns, Dordrecht, Haarlem, Delft, Leyden, Amsterdam, Gouda, Rotterdam, Gorkum, Schiedam, Schoonhoven, Brill, Alkmaar, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Edam, Monnikendam, Medemblik and Purmerend, had one each.  The nobles, though they had only one vote, were influential, as they represented the rural districts and the small towns which had no franchise, and they voted first.  Here again, as in the States-General, though each of the privileged towns counted equal in the voting, as a matter of fact their weight and influence was very different.  The opposition of wealthy and populous Amsterdam was again and again sufficient to override the decision of the majority, for there was no power to enforce its submission, except the employment of armed force.  For at this point it may be as well to explain that each one of these municipalities (vroedschappen) claimed to be a sovereign entity, and yet, far from