ABSTRACT
With the air of a dispassionate enquirer De la Court began by laying down a set of general rules. The true interest of every country, he said, consisted in the prosperity of all its inhabitants. The advocacy of personal liberty was restricted solely to its economic aspect. The spokesman of the regents was treading on delicate ground. Relations with other republics could be conducted on the basis of a common morality. But none of them, apart from the other members of the Dutch confederacy, had interests in common with Holland. In the practical application of the principles of the policy of power“, says Heckscher, “mercantilism followed two different methods; the first consisted in deflecting economic activity towards the particular ends demanded by political, and more especially military, power; the second in creating a kind of reservoir of economic resources generally, from which the policy of power could draw what it required”.
