Patriottentijd

Those local governments, however, though ostensibly representing "The People" according to the prevailing ideology, had in fact evolved into oligarchies dominated by a few families that in the cities at least were not formally part of the nobility, but were considered "patrician" in the classical sense.

Power devolved upon regents, first the dowager Princess of Orange, and after her death in 1759, de facto Duke Louis Ernest of Brunswick-Lüneburg, who saw even less merit in "democratic" experiments.

Meanwhile, the greatly expanded powers of the stadtholder consisted primarily in his right of appointment, or at least approval, of magistrates on the local and provincial level, which were enshrined in the so-called regeringsreglementen (Government Regulations) adopted by most provinces in 1747.

However, a direct order to set sail was disobeyed by the Dutch naval top with again the excuse of "unreadiness," but some officers, like vice-admiral Lodewijk van Bylandt, the intended leader of the expedition, let it be known that they did not want to cooperate with the French.

[20] Adams set to work to influence public opinion with the help of a number of those Dutch contacts which he enumerates in a letter to United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs Robert Livingstone of 4 September 1782.

[21] He mentions the Amsterdam lawyer Hendrik Calkoen, who was very interested in the American cause, and who posed thirty questions on the matter that Adams answered in a number of letters, that were later bundled and published as an influential pamphlet.

[25] Adams himself harped on this theme in the "Memorial" he presented to the States-General to obtain acceptance of his credentials as ambassador on 19 April 1781: If there was ever among nations a natural alliance, one may be formed between the two republics...The origins of the two Republics are so much alike that the history of the one seems to be but a transcript of the other; so that every Dutchman instructed in the subject must pronounce the American revolution just and necessary or pass censure upon the greatest actions of his immortal ancestors; an action which has been approved and applauded by mankind and justified by the decision of heaven...[26]The immediate audience of the "Memorial" may have been sceptical, but elsewhere the document made a great impression.

It was soon joined by an Amsterdam magazine with the same character, the Politieke Kruijer (Political Porter), edited by J.C. Hespe, and later by Wybo Fijnje's Hollandsche Historische Courant (Dutch Historical Journal) in Delft.

[29] Since the late Middle Ages cities in the Habsburg Netherlands had employed citizen militias for external defense (mostly against incursions from neighboring provinces), and to keep public order.

By the early 1780s the militias were but a caricature of their proud predecessors, subservient to the city magistrates, who made officer commissions the preserve of the regenten class, and more like recreative societies than serious military formations.

[30] From 1783 onwards, the Patriots therefore started to form their own militias, parallel to the official schutterijen, which they called by innocuous names like exercitiegenootschappen or vrijcorpsen (Free Corps[Note 10]) in order not to provoke the city governments.

An example of the latter was the city of Utrecht where under the direction of the exercitiegenootschap Pro Patria et Libertate (in which the student leader Quint Ondaatje played a prominent role) the schutterij was taken over by the Free Corps,[32] while the old organisational structure with company names like "the Pikes" and "the Black Boys" was studiously retained (including the old flags and banners).

[33] At first in some cities the vroedschap encouraged this usurpation of the role of the schutterij, because it helped to undermine the stadtholder's right to appoint the leadership of the militia (as in Alkmaar, Leiden and Dordrecht[31]), which the regenten resented themselves.

[Note 11] On 3 April 1784 such a riot was bloodily suppressed by a Free-Corps company in Rotterdam, when a panicky officer ordered his men to open fire on the mob, which resulted in several people killed.

In response a congress of the representatives of the Holland exercitiegenootschappen commissioned a group of members, among whom Wybo Fijnje, Pieter Vreede, and Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck to write the manifesto along the lines of the draft they discussed in a meeting on 4 October 1785.

They would not be physically assaulted (even provided with food and drink), but the psychological pressure of the threatening crowd, and the threats that "it would be impossible to constrain them, if the demands were not met" would soon convince them to give in.

And indeed, on 20 March 1786, while the Free Corps again occupied the central square in silent menace, while a blizzard blew, the vroedschap allowed several of its members to formally abjure the old Government Regulation.

Things came to a head in February 1787 when a group of Free-Corps officers, led by a Colonel Isaac van Goudoever forced entry to the council chamber in protest against an anti-Patriot move Dedel had engineered.

This conspiracy failed due to the obduracy of the stadtholder, but on 20 April 1787 an incendiary pamphlet, entitled Het Verraad Ontdekt ("The Treason Discovered"), made it public, and this incensed the Patriots.

The Burgher Defense Council, which commanded the Free Corps, organised a petition (the "Act of Qualification") which was signed by 16,000 people, and the next day the Dam Square before the city hall was thronged with thousands of guild members, Patriot citizens and armed militiamen.

The Amsterdam council was once more locked in chambers, not expected to emerge without a positive decision, and on the initiative of Hooft the vroedschap was purged of the members whose dismissal had been demanded in the Act of Qualification.

[Note 17] The pro-Orangist States of Gelderland then asked the stadtholder to lend a hand in suppressing this "insurrection" and on 4 September a task-force of the Nijmegen garrison duly marched to Hattem and entered that city over light opposition the next day.

[Note 18] The Dutch Republic had from its inception been a battlefield of Great Power diplomacy in which the Holland regenten (lately in the guise of the States Party) had been sympathetic to France, and the Orangists usually favored the British.

But Harris did far more: he was supplied with ample funds from the British Secret Service and he used that money to buy influence left and right, beginning with a generous pension-with-strings-attached of £4,000 per annum for the stadtholder himself.

[63] In 1786 a Prussian minister, Johann von Goertz, came to The Hague with a proposal that might even be acceptable to the democrats, but Harris easily convinced William, already in great spirits after the events of Hattem and Elburg, that this would amount to a "capitulation" and the stadtholder appended conditions that were unacceptable to the Patriots.

The Princess was not harmed and she was soon allowed to return to Nijmegen, but the fact that her captors had been impolite (one of them sat unbidden at her dinner table, which was a serious breach of etiquette; another stood with a drawn sabre in her presence) caused great consternation and outrage.

An invasion force of around 26,000 Prussian troops under the command of the duke of Brunswick (a nephew of William's old mentor) entered the Republic on 13 September 1787, after a final ultimatum was again left unanswered.

A limited Amnesty was declared in November 1787, but the "extra-judicial" persecution of Patriots was more effective anyway: in Gouda 200 houses were looted by the Orangist mob; in 's Hertogenbosch 829; in Utrecht the bill ran to one million guilders.

The Paper explicitly refers to the Prussian intervention, but apparently the news of its success had not yet reached the U.S. by the time of the paper's publication, as the wording leaves the hope open that the Patriots will prevail: The first wish prompted by humanity is, that this severe trial may issue in such a revolution of their government as will establish their union, and render it the parent of tranquillity, freedom and happiness.In the Dutch Republic, meanwhile, Harris worked to ensure that such an outcome would not come about; that there would not be a repeat of the Patriot Revolt; and that the stadtholderian regime would remain on top in perpetuity.

To complete the triangle, Harris brought about a treaty between Great Britain and Prussia during a visit of the Prussian king to his sister at Het Loo on 12/13 June 1788, again guaranteeing the stadtholderian constitution, and renewing the Anglo-Prussian military alliance.