These can be defined as extorted sums of money that the authorities in affected communities were forced to promise to pay to ward off the pillage and burning of their villages and cities (also called brandschatting in Dutch).

Such promises were laid down in formal treaties between the extorted authorities and the raiders and usually were secured by the taking of hostages, or the threat of actual violence in case of non-compliance.

[1] The motivation for the Grovestins' Raid was such a case of "non-compliance" with a "contribution" agreed in 1708 with the Intendant des finances of the French province of Champagne and the areas of the Three Bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun.

[3] The perceived default motivated the States General of the Netherlands to order the incursion in the areas mentioned to exact payment of the overdue "contributions".

[b] Grovestins' brigade of cavalry of about 1800 troopers (hussars and dragoons)[c] departed from the Allied camp near Le Cateau-Cambrésis in the evening of 10 June 1712, and followed the following route through the North of France: Proisy, Vervins, Crécy-sur-Serre, Neufchâtel-sur-Aisne, Suippes, Sainte-Menehould, Saint-Mihiel, Xivray, Pont-à-Mousson, Nomeny, Metz, Boulay, Trarbach, Lötzbeuren, Koblenz, Andernach, Bonn, Aachen, Maastricht, Leuven, Brussels, to finally end up in Tournai, where the Allied army was encamped after Denain, on 28 July 1712.

But in hindsight the action was more of a failure, as a number of important personages, among whom the Archbishop of Reims, who had been at the fair, were able to escape, depriving Grovestins of valuable hostages.

Something similar happened later in the day in Suippes, which town surrendered without a fight after intercession by the local priest, and submitted to the contribution the next morning.

[11][d] In St. Mihiel Grovestins was received with great honors by the local governor and after a few hours of exchanges of pleasantries the brigade passed through the city without incident.

In Xivray a messenger of the Duke promised assistance with revictualling and the brigade marched peacefully on until on 15 June the Moselle was crossed again without incident at Pont-à-Mousson.

The acting governor of Metz,[e] the Marquis de Refuge, let his troops man the Covertway, and opened fire on the Dutch with his cannon.

The main Dutch force remained on St. Barbe, where a number of local landowners came by to ask for Safe conduct, which was in all cases granted.

When the detachments that Grovestins had sent out to pillage and burn returned that evening they brought a large number of hostages and rich booty.

The French so admired his conduct, however, that Villars allowed him to be paroled and to travel back to the Dutch Republic for three months, after which he returned to comfortable imprisonment.