3500. Speaking about their business activity, I noticed that their life consisted not so much in money, but in negotiation itself, so that their wealth was not so much in coffers, in merchandise, which they did not prize so highly, either, but in business, which was indeed their goal, thus their soul. This they have in common, although for some - but relatively few of them - their goal is to have magnificent buildings, suburban homes, and also to live luxuriously.
[2] I spoke with them about their business, which is their life and soul, and their desire to possess, by whatever method and ruse, everything that others have, considering that whatever there was anywhere belonged to them.
About the Jews they said they detested them because of their foreign trade, but that in the way of business, they attract much money into the fatherland by secret methods unknown to the Dutch, and for this reason they are tolerated. Yet since they cannot defraud them of anything, they have no dealings with them. So they like them more than the rest, but all others in the world not so much, thinking that by their means they could attract their wealth to themselves.
3500. Speaking of their business proceedings, I perceived that their life was not so much wrapped up in money as in business itself; for their riches did not consist in money laid up in coffers, nor in their merchandise itself, of which they think comparatively little, but in business itself, which was their end and their life. It was however common to them, at least to some of them, to have magnificent houses and suburban dwellings, where they lived luxuriously; but this was the case with a few only. I conversed with them [at length] on this business propensity, which was their life and soul, and their desire for possessing, by whatever art and management, what others possessed, even in any part of the world, and their thinking that everything must belong to them. Concerning the Jews, they said they hated them on account of their foreign traffic, but as to business, as they draw much money into their country by various secret methods unknown to them, they regard them with a degree of tolerance. But as they were unable to defraud them of anything, they had no dealings with them, though in point of fact they preferred them to all others, thinking that by their means they could attract the good of others to themselves.
3500. De negotiatione eorum loquutus, et percepi quod vitam haberent non ita in pecuniis, sed in ipsa negotiatione, ut pecunia esset non ita in cistis, in mercibus, quas neque ita aestimabant, sed in negotiatione; et quidem quod finis eorum esset sic anima eorum, negotiatio: hoc commune iis, 36 quibusdam tamen, ut aedificia habeant magnifica, etiam domos suburbanas, tum quoque opipare vivere, sed hoc paucis. Loquutus de eorum negotiatione, quae vita et anima eorum, quod vellent habere, qualicunque modo et arte, quicquid alii habent, et quicquid ubivis loci, quod sic putabant ad se pertinere: de Judaeis dicebant, quod eos exosi qua mercaturas externas, sed quoad negotiationem, quod multum pecuniae secretis modis iis incognitis, in patriam eorum attrahant, ideo tolerant, sed usque iis nihil surripere possunt, quare nec cum iis habent commercium, ita eos amabant prae caeteris, sed omnes alios in universo terrarum orbe, non ita, quia eorum bona ita ad se attrahere posse, arbitrantes.