with me to-night, and, in the meantime, bear my worthy friend here company.

Beam. With all my heart.

Per. So, now I am secure; though I dare not trust her with one of them, I may with both; they'll hinder one another, and preserve my honour into the bargain.

[Exit.

Beam. Now, Mr Fiscal, you are the happy man with the ladies, and have got the precedence of traffic here too; you've the Indies in your armis, yet I hope a poor Englishman may come in for a third part of the merchandise.

Fisc. Oh, sir, in these commodities, here's enough for both; here's mace for you, and nutmeg for me, in the same fruit, and yet the owner has to spare for other friends too.

Jul. My husband's plantation is like to thrive well betwixt you.

Beam. Horn him; he deserves not so much happiness as he enjoys in you; he's jealous.

Jul. Tis no wonder if a Spaniard looks yellow.

Beam Betwixt you and me, 'tis a little kind of venture that we make, in doing this Don's drudgery for him; for the whole nation of them is generally so pocky, that 'tis no longer a disease, but a second nature in them.

Fisc. I have heard indeed, that 'tis incorporated among them, as deeply as the Moors and Jews are; there's scarce a family, but 'tis crept into their blood, like the new Christians.

Jul. Come, I'll have no whispering betwixt you; I know you were talking of my husband, because my nose itches.

Beam. Faith, madam, I was speaking in favour of your nation: What pleasant lives I have known Spaniards to live in England.

Jul. If you love me, let me hear a little.

Beam. We observed them to have much of the nature of our flies; they buzzed abroad a month or two in the summer, would venture about dogdays to take the air in the Park, but all the winter slept like dormice; and, if they ever appeared in public after Michaelmas, their faces shewed the difference betwixt their country and ours, for they look in Spain as if they were roasted, and in England as if they were sodden.

Jul. I'll not believe your description.

Fisc. Yet our observations of them in Holland are not much unlike it. I've known a great Don at the Hague, with the gentleman of his horse, his major domo, and two secretaries, all dine at four tables, on the quarters of a single pullet: The victuals of the under servants were weighed out in ounces, by the Don himself; with so much garlic in the other scale: A thin slice of bacon went through the family a week together; for it was daily put into the pot for pottage; was served in the midst of the dish at dinners, and taken out and weighed by the steward, at the end of every meal, to see how much it lost; till, at length, looking at it against the sun, it appeared transparent, and then he would have whipped it up, as his own fees, at a morsel; but that his lord barred the dice, and reckoned it to him for a part of his board wages.

Beam. In few words, madam, the general notion we had of them, was, that they were very frugal of their Spanish coin, and very liberal of their Neapo

litan.

Jul. I see, gentlemen, you are in the way of rallying; therefore let me be no hinderance to your sport; do as much for one another as you have done for our nation. Pray, Mynheer Fiscal, what think you of the English?

Fisc. Oh, I have an honour for the country.

Beam. I beseech you, leave your ceremony; we can hear of our faults without choler; therefore speak of us with a true Amsterdam spirit, and do not spare us.

Fisc. Since you command me, sir, 'tis said of you, I know not how truly, that for your fishery at home, you're like dogs in the manger, you will neither manage it yourselves, nor permit your neighbours; so that for your sovereignty of the narrow seas, if the inhabitants of them, the herrings, were capable of being judges, they would certainly award it to the English, because they were then sure to live undisturbed, and quiet under you.

Beam. Very good; proceed, sir.

Fisc. 'Tis true, you gave us aid in our time of need, but you paid yourselves with our cautionary towns: And, that you have since delivered them up, we can never give sufficient commendation, either to your honesty, or to your wit; for both which qualities you have purchased such an immortal fame, that all nations are instructed how to deal with you another time.

Beam. A most grateful acknowledgment; sweet sir, go on.

Fisc. For your trade abroad, if you should obtain it, you are so horribly expensive, that you would undo yourselves and all Christendom; for you would sink under your very profit, and the gains of the universal world would beggar you: You devour a voyage to the Indies, by the multitude of mouths with which you man your vessels: Providence has contrived it well, that the Indies are managed by us, an industrious and frugal people, who distribute its merchandise to the rest of Europe, and suffer it not to be consumed in England, that the other members might be starved, while you of

Great Britain, as you call it, like a rickety head, would only swell and grow bigger by it.

Jul. I have heard enough of England; have you nothing to return upon the Netherlands?

Beam. Faith, very little to any purpose; he has been beforehand with us, as his countrymen are in their trade, and taken up so many vices for the use of England, that he has left almost none for the Low Countries.

Jul. Come, a word, however.

Beam. In the first place, you shewed your ambition when you began to be a state: For not being gentlemen, you have stolen the arms of the best families of Europe; and, wanting a name, you made bold with the first of the divine attributes, and called yourselves the High and Mighty: though, let me tell you, that, besides the blasphemy, the title is ridiculous; for High is no more proper for the Netherlands, than Mighty is for seven little rascally provinces, no bigger in all than a shire in England. For my main theme, your ingratitude, you have in part acknowledged it, by your laughing at our easy delivery of your cautionary towns: The best is, we are used by you as well as your own princes of the house of Orange: We and they have set you up, and you undermine their power, and circumvent our trade.

Fisc. And good reason, if our interest requires it. Beam. That leads me to your religion, which is only made up of interest: At home, you tolerate all worships in them who can pay for it; and abroad, you were lately so civil to the emperor of Pegu, as to do open sacrifice to his idols.

Fisc. Yes, and by the same token, you English were such precise fools as to refuse it.

Beam. For frugality in trading, we confess we cannot compare with you;. for our merchants live

like noblemen; your gentlemen, if you have any, live like boors. You traffic for all the rarities of the world, and dare use none of them yourselves; so that, in effect, you are the mill-horses of mankind, that labour only for the wretched provender you eat: A pot of butter and a pickled herring is all your riches; and, in short, you have a good title to cheat all Europe, because, in the first place, you cozen your own backs and bellies.

Fisc. We may enjoy more whenever we please. Beam. Your liberty is a grosser cheat than any of the rest; for you are ten times more taxed than any people in Christendom: You never keep any league with foreign princes; you flatter our kings, and ruin their subjects; you never denied us satisfaction at home for injuries, nor ever gave it us abroad.

Fisc. You must make yourselves more feared, when you expect it.

Beam. And I prophecy that time will come, when some generous monarch of our island will undertake our quarrel, reassume the fishery of our seas, and make them as considerable to the English, as the Indies are to you.

Fisc. Before that comes to pass, you may repent your over-lavish tongue.

Beam. I was no more in earnest than you were. Jul. Pray let this go no further; my husband has invited both to supper.

Beam. If you please, I'll fall to before he comes; or, at least, while he is conferring in private with the Fiscal. [Aside to her. Jul. Their private businesses let them agree; The Dutch for him, the Englishman for me.

[Exeunt.