The achievements of Jan van Heemstee from Delfshaven in Rotterdam may perhaps raise expectations that more retired commanders developed a spirit of enterprise in the city. However, such expectations are doomed to disappointment, despite the fact that the situation in Rotterdam offered commanders promising opportunities to launch commercial and industrial initiatives. In contrast to the four preceding towns, all mired in difficulties, Rotterdam was a city which was growing. In the other four towns, the population was in steady decline, houses stood empty or were being demolished, and the local economy was contracting at an alarming rate. There was scarcely a trace of these problems to be seen in Rotterdam. After explosive growth in the seventeenth century, and population growth from 20,000 in 1622 to 51,000 in 1690, the number of inhabitants did drop slightly to between 44,000 and 47,000 around 1750, but half a century later it had risen again, reaching 58,000. The Personele Quotisatie, the personal income assessment for tax purposes, of 1742 offers insight into the financial circumstances of the upper echelons of the Rotterdam population. In that year the Province of Holland placed a tax on all its inhabitants who had an annual income exceeding f. 600. In Rotterdam, 2,600 people – 5 to 6 per cent of the total population – were liable to pay the tax. The large majority of this group, 90 per cent, had an income of between f. 600 and f. 4,000. The remaining 10 per cent enjoyed even higher incomes. A closer examination reveals that almost half of the households paying this tax (1,177) were connected with the harbour in one way or another.

This was a conspicuous characteristic of the Rotterdam economy, just as the relative stability of urban trade and industry was. The situation did not change markedly in the eighteenth century. The fishery had since lost its importance and by that time it was flourishing downstream in Vlaardingen and Maassluis. Shipbuilding, rope making and sawing remained strong, however. Tobacco and sugar were important products in the processing industries that thrived in the town. Indeed, the tobacco industry employed 3,500 people in fifty-six businesses. In the second half of the century, the importance of sugar waned, but distilleries and a few other industries still provided plenty of work.