Several letter-writers to (serious) Dutch newspapers have quoted Benjamin Franklin as having said: "Holland is not a nation but a shop". Why did Franklin say this (if he did)? Google finds the above-mentioned newspapers but little else.
Link to NRC (liberal-leaning quality newspaper) (paywalled) and my translation.
Original Dutch:
op het Binnenhof, speciaal bij de VVD, de EU er vooral te zijn om onze aardappelen wat makkelijker te kunnen verkopen, waarbij ‘vrijheid’ tot ‘vrijhandel’ wordt gereduceerd. „Holland”, zo vatte de grote Amerikaanse staatsman Benjamin Franklin al ruim twee eeuwen geleden ons vaderlandse pseudo-vrijheidsideaal kernachtig samen, „is not a nation, but a shop.”
My translation:
In the Binnenhof [seat of government] especially with the VVD [Liberal party, main government party] the EU exists primarily to sell our potatoes more easily, so that 'freedom' is reduced to 'free trade'. The great American statesman Benjamin Franklin summarized our fatherland's pseudo-freedom ideals concisely as "Holland is not a nation but a shop".
Other references seem similar.