ABSTRACT
The Dutch polity was the open body politic. The Netherlands lacked I all forms of definition. Held together in a constantly negotiated arrangement, the States, the Republic, the United Provinces had neither a settled name nor settled political arrangements. 1 The citizens, subjects, refugees, and other inhabitants shared neither religion nor language nor ethnicity. They were not bounded even by the sea. The Dutch were inhabitants of “the universal quagmire,” “such an equilibrium of earth and water that a strong earthquake would shake them into a chaos.” 2 Their borders were constantly uncertain: changed by war and nature certainly, but also by their own labor.
They, with mad labor, fished the land to shore,
And dived as desperately for each piece
Of earth as if t had been of ambergris…
Who best could learn to pump an earth so leak
Him they their Lord, and Country's Father, speak
To make a bank was a great plot of state;
Invent a shovel and be a magistrate. 3
