Excerpt from The Fall of the Dutch Republic As to most students, their stream of knowledge about Dutch history starts fresh and bright among the heroic deeds of the sixteenth century, follows a less impetuous course during the seventeenth, and runs itself to death among the dry sands of the eighteenth. They are aware of the undeniable fact that at the present. Moment there exists a Kingdom of the Netherlands. But what lies between the days of William III (of Macaulay fame) and the foundation of the modern kingdom, is a subject of quite as much speculation as the mediaeval history of Greece or China. It has been my intention to supply the missing link for the benefit of American readers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.