The truce had declared the re-establishment of commercial liberty, but the blockade of the coast remained as stringent as ever. Flushing, Middleburg and Amsterdam had inherited the transit trade of Antwerp, now completely abandoned by foreign merchants. In 1609 only two Genoese and one merchant from Lucca remained in the place, while the last Portuguese and English were taking their departure. The Exchange was now so completely deserted that, in 1648, it was used as a library. The docks were only frequented by a few Dutch boats which brought their cargo of corn and took away manufactured articles. Any foreign boat laden for Antwerp was obliged to discharge its cargo in Zeeland, the Dutch merchant fleet monopolizing the trade of the Scheldt.
The Belgians could not alter this situation themselves. They could only appeal to Spanish help, and Spain was neither in a situation nor in a mood to help them. Most of its naval forces had been destroyed during the Armada adventure, and neither the few galleys brought by Spinola to Sluis, before the taking of this town by Maurice of Nassau (1604), nor the privateers from Dunkirk were able to do more than harass Dutch trade. With the defeat of the reorganized Spanish fleet at the Battle of the Downs, the last hope of seeing the Dutch blockade raised vanished. Not only was the Lower Scheldt firmly held, but enemy ships cruised permanently outside Ostend, Nieuport and Dunkirk. The attempts made by the Government to counter these measures by the closing of the land frontier were equally doomed to failure, since the Dutch did not depend in any way on their Belgian market, while the Belgians needed the corn imported from the Northern provinces. The extraordinary indifference of the Spanish kings to the trade of their Northern possessions is made evident by the fact that, while the treaty of 1609 allowed the Dutch to trade with the Indies, it was only thirty-one years later that the Belgians received the same permission.
Thwarted in this direction, the activity of the people and of the Government concentrated on industry and agriculture. Dikes were rebuilt, marshes drained and cattle brought into the country. Though trade had been ruined, the raw material remained. The region of Valenciennes, Tournai and Lille was the first to recover. The wool which could no longer come through Antwerp was imported from Rouen, a staple being fixed at St. Omer. In 1597 an enthusiastic contemporary compared Lille to a small Antwerp. The Walloon provinces had been less severely tried, and the coal industry, as well as the foundries, in the Meuse valley soon recovered their former activity. Tapestry-making was also resumed in Oudenarde and Brussels, copper-working in Malines, dyeing in Antwerp and linen-weaving in the Flemish country districts. But the economic upheaval caused by the civil wars had given the death-blow to the decaying town industries, paralysed by the régime of the corporations. The coppersmiths of Dinant and Namur were now completely ruined, and the cloth industry in Ghent had become so insignificant that, in 1613, the cloth hall of the town was ceded to the society of the "Fencers of St. Michael." Rural industry and capitalist organization, which had made such strides at the beginning of the sixteenth century, had now definitely superseded mediæval institutions.