Doelisten movement
This petition, which historian Pieter Geyl called a 'decisive democratic program', advocated radical reforms to the functioning of the city's governing bodies such as the election of the vroedschap and directors of the East and West India Company by the citizenry.
[1] Through the correspondence between agent of the English King Richard Wolters and the Rotterdam cake baker Laurens van der Meer, Stadholder Willem IV learned of the activities of the Amsterdam 'democrats'.
De Huyser invited Van der Meer to come back to Amsterdam, where they started working on an alternative petition comprising three articles.
This petition contained much more moderate proposals: they demanded the transfer of the revenues of the postal administration to the region, an end to nepotism in the allocation of city posts, the restoration of the rights and privileges of the guilds and the election of the senior officers of the Civil Militia.
Initially, the Doelisten occupied the Rondeel hall, but due to the great interest the radical Doelists had to move to the Grote Burgerzaal, where the literary society the Ridders van het Heelal was meeting at that time.
Van Gimnig opened the meeting in the Grote Burgerzaal with a fiery speech full of references to a glorious past, the present of the decline of the Republic, the occupation by the French and the return of the stadtholder.
In the meantime, a smaller number of Doelisten of moderate origin had stayed behind in the Rondeel, where they discussed the three articles drafted by de Huyser and Van der Meer.
It is only after Van der Meer managed to recruit the porcelain seller Daniël Raap for the moderate faction that they gained significant support.
The charismatic Raap had already made important contributions to reformists in Amsterdam in November by, for example, devoting himself to making stadholdership hereditary and advocating to end the abuses regarding the distribution of government jobs.
[5] On August 17, Raap, De Huyser and Ellie Chatin were summoned to the town hall where the mayors received the three articles of petition.
At the request of the committee meeting, the 'Bijltjes' - the nickname for the shipwrights of Amsterdam - were mobilized to enter the city unarmed, together with civilians dressed as axes, to thwart the signing of the anti-Doelist pamphlet.
They were succeeded by Cornelis Trip, Ferdinand van Collen, Gerard Aarnout Hasselaar and Willem Gideon Deutz.
Shortly after his departure, a proclamation from the prince announced that the newly established independent court-martial would be overturned and that the old leadership of the Civil Militia would be restored.
On March 6, 1752, a large number of Amsterdam regents signed the so-called Correspondence of Pointen van Ordre.
In this new system, abuse of power on the part of mayors or the stadtholder was countered by seniority: of the members of the Correspondence, the elders would first be discussed.
