The Pilgrims in Holland; R. Peterson

The story of Holland's rise due to free market policies has already been sketched in a previous Freeman article.2 Suffice to say that her struggle for independence from Spain was of epic proportions: when, after a siege of sev eral months, the citizens of Leyden talked of surrender, one burgomaster fortified their spirits by saying, "Here is my sword; plunge it, if you will, into my heart, and divide my flesh among you to appease your hunger; but expect no surrender as long as I am alive."3 The burgomaster lived-and so did the rest of the citizens of Leyden-to see the day when William the Silent routed the besieging Span iards. The defense of Leyden turned the tide, and from then on the Dutch never looked back in their fight for freedom. Once they were free, the Dutch embraced much of what we would call a free market philosophy and set up a lim ited government. In the early 1600s, Holland was the most liberal society in Europe.

Mr. Peterson is headmaster of The Pilgrim Academy in Egg Harbor City, New Jersey. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications, including National Review and Human Events. It should not surpriseus, then, that when Eng lish Separatists began to think of emigrating, they thought of Holland. But emigrating to Holland would be no easy task: Englishmen could not leave the country without permission. Never mind-the Separatists would leave se cretly. The first group-members of a Brownist church in Gainsborough, went over in 1607; hearing good reports, .members of the Scrooby congregation - the group which in cluded many of the Pilgrim Fathers-prepared to follow. After several attempts to escape, the Pilgrims finally succeeded, arriving in Am sterdam on a Dutch ship. Soon after, they applied to the authorities in Leyden to settle there. John Robinson, their pastor, made a formal application to the Burgo masters and Court of Leyden, stating that about 100 English men and women wanted to come to the city to live "and to have the freedom thereof in carrying on their trades, without being a burden in the least to anyone. "4 The application was granted on February 12, 1609. The Dutch authorities declared that "~hey refuse no honest persons free ingress to come and have their residence in this city, pro vided that such persons behave themselves, and submit to the laws and ordinances." Their coming, the Dutch authorities added, "will be agreeable and welcome."5 As early as the 1600s, the Dutch-with few natural resources of their own-realized the importance of human capital.

The Dutch didn't provide a welcome-wagon of gifts and subsidies: there were no govern421 ment handouts. What they did offer the Pil grims was freedom-the freedom to worship according to their consciences as well as to succeed or fail in the Dutch marketplace. Britain's King James, hearing of the Pil grims' arrival in Leyden, sent a letter of protest to the town authorities. Jan Van Hout, secre tary of the City of Leyden, gave a polite reply, but made no effort either to expel the Pilgrims or to help King James capture them.6 The Pil grims were free men. The Meaning of Freedom Free men. For the Pilgrims, this was a new idea. Just what did it mean to be free? With the external pressure of persecution lifted, would the Pilgrims remain true to their original calling? Or would they tum liberty into license and lose their distinctive identity? Time would show that the Pilgrims took seriously their re sponsibilities of self-government. Indeed, the Dutch experience would prove to be an excel lent halfway house to the freedom the Pilgrims would find in the New World. For the next 11 years, the Pilgrims took advantage of all the opportunities that Dutch society offered.

Because of their excellent reputation for honesty and hard work, the Pilgrims were able to obtain loans and jobs which they needed to set themselves up in Holland. In a market economy, there is no substitute for keeping one's word and honoring contracts. William Bradford, who later became governor of Plym outh Colony, wrote: "And first, though many of them were poor, yet there was none so poor but if they were known to be of that congrega tion the Dutch (either bakers or others) would trust them in any reasonable matter when they wanted money, because they found by experi ence how careful they were to keep their word, and saw them so painful and diligent in their callings. Yea, they would strive to get their custom and to employ them above others in their work, for their honesty and diligence. "7 Most of the Pilgrims went to work in the tex tile industry, something for which they had little experience. William Bradford became a fustian worker, while others became weavers, woolcombers, and merchant tailors. In Eng land, almost all had been farmers, following the same patterns of medieval agriculture that their fathers and grandfathers had followed. It must have been hard for grown men to learn a 422 THE FREEMAN. NOVEMBER 1988 new trade, but it was the price they had to pay to live in a relatively free society. Moreover, it helped to make the Pilgrims an adaptable and teachable people.

At first, the Pilgrims held church services in the homes of various members. But in 1611, the Pilgrims bought a large house to be used for church services and as a residence for their pastor, John Robinson. 8 Left \alone by the Dutch, the Pilgrims were finding that Chris tians could support a church without the aid of government. In Robinson's house, the Pilgrims continued to exercise the congregationalist form of church government which would have such a great impact on American republi canism. The New England town meeting traces its origin to the congregational church, not to ancient Greece, as many high school history texts erroneously teach. The Pilgrims also took advantage of Hol land's laissez-faire government to set up a small publishing house. Working near the limits of the long arm of King James, William Brewster and Edward Winslow ran a printing press where Puritan tracts and books were published and sent back to England. In all, Brewster pub lished between 15 and 20 books. Unfortu nately, the Dutch could not withstand the pres sure from the English government forever, and were compelled to shut down Brewster's press in 1619. Yet they refused to arrest Brewster himself. 9 Tolerance The Netherlands' atmosphere of religious freedom tended to have a liberalizing effect on the Pilgrims. John Robinson, for example, was invited to debate at Leyden University. Al though he never changed his Separatist views, he did learn that men of different faiths could live together without killing one another. Later, in the New World, Plymouth Colony would prove to be a handy buffer zone between the Puritans' Massachusetts Bay Colony and the more radical colonists in Rhode Island. When Harvard's first president, Henry Dunster, for example, resigned because he came to reject the Puritan doctrine of infant baptism, he set tled in Plymouth. The Pilgrims also believed in infant baptism, but they had become tolerant enough to "agree to disagree" with other Christians like Dunster.

The Pilgrims weren't the only ones to benefit from the freedom offered by seventeenth-cen tury Dutch society. Indeed, as one historian put it, there was a steady "flow of exiles, English and Scottish, who sought refuge in Holland from the religious persecution and political vio lence of seventeenth-century England and Scot land. "10 Literally thousands of English and Scottish Dissenters, unwelcome at Oxford and Cambridge, were educated at the Universities of Leyden and Utrecht. Even John Locke, who had to flee England, benefited from refuge in the Lowlands. Historian Dr. R. Colie has written: ". . . in the city of Amsterdam where writing and printing were so natural to all great minds, Locke began to become Locke, and the obscure political exile turned into the philoso pher par excellence of a new regime in thought. ' '11 And when the people of England sought a new pair of monarchs to usher in an age of toleration and freedom, they found them in Holland: William and Mary. The result was England's Glorious Revolution, one of the few bloodless revolutions in history. A year later, England had a Bill of Rights.

The 11 years the Pilgrims spent in Holland saw them grow in responsibility, adaptability, and self-government. As Bradford Smith put it in his biography of William Bradford, "The lib ertarian tradition at Plymouth, with its pro found influence on American life, is not pri marily English. It is Dutch. Simple justice de mands that we acknowledge this .... Thus, during their Leyden years, were the Pilgrims perfecting themselves for the undreamed of work of founding a new nation. In religion, they grew milder and more tolerant. In business and craftsmanship they learned a great deal from the thrifty, ambitious and highly capable Hollanders. Too, the Dutch flair for efficient government and record keeping, the spirit of republicanism and civic responsibility were to bear unsuspected fruit in a distant land. ' '12 The Pilgrims left Leyden in 1620; William Bradford described their departure in a now famous passage which later gave the Pilgrims their name: "So they left that goodly and pleasant city which had been their resting place near twelve years; but they knew they were pilEdward Winslow (1595-1655), Mayflower Pilgrim, a founder and governor of Plymouth Colony.

grims, and looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits. ' ,13 The Mayflower Compact When the Pilgrims finally landed in America, Separatists and Anglicans joined to gether to form America's first written constitu tion-the Mayflower Compact. It was a crucial precedent for self-government in America. Despite their experience in Holland's free economy, the Pilgrims tried a brief experiment in agricultural socialism when they arrived in America. This experiment, based on a false reading of the Book of Acts, caused wide spread starvation. Fortunately, before it was too late, the Pilgrims saw their error and aban doned their "common course" in favor of pri vate property. As Bradford later explained, "This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much com was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. . . . The experience that was THE PILGRIMS IN HOLLAND 423 had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. "14 Some present-day historians believe that the Pilgrims have been overrated, that this little band of 100 or so English farmers doesn't de serve such an exalted position in the popular American imagination. Such an attitude is un derstandable, since most of these same writers disagree with everything for which the Pilgrims stood. Our forefathers knew better. Even be fore the Revolutionary War, they were cele brating "Old Comers Day" and "Forefathers Day" to honor the coming of the Pilgrims and, more important, the values they represented including religious, civil, and economic lib erty.

This Thanksgiving, let's remember that the material blessings most of us will enjoy this season were made possible by the principles of self-government under God that served the Dutch and the Pilgrims so well in the seven teenth century. Within the space of 20 years, the Pilgrims moved from a static, medieval society to laying the "cornerstone of a nation." We may still profit from their example. 0 1. Thomas A. Bailey and David M. Kennedy, The American Pageant, Vol. I (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath and Co., 1979), p. 36. 2. Robert A. Peterson, "Lessons in Liberty: The Dutch Re public, 1579-1750," The Freeman, July, 1987, pp. 259-264. 3. William Stevenson, The Story of the Reformation (Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1959), p. 125. 4. John Brown, The Pilgrim Fathers of New England and Their Puritan Successor (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1896), pp. 120-121. 5. Ibid. 6. Mary B. Sherwood, Pilgrim: A Biography of William Brew ster (Falls Church, Virginia: Great Oak Press of Virginia, 1982), p.

117. 7. William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952, 1982), pp. 19-20. 8. Sherwood, p. 123. 9. Ibid., p. 134. 10. Charles Wilson, The Dutch Republic (New York: McGraw Hill Book Co., 1968), p. 183. 11. Ibid., p. 175. 12. Bradford Smith, Bradford of Plymouth (Philadelphia: Lip pincott, 1951), p. 78. 13. Bradford, p. 47. 14. Ibid., pp. 120-121.