Pieter 't Hoen

Pieter 't Hoen (baptized 18 October 1744 in Utrecht – 9 January 1828 in Amersfoort) was a Dutch journalist, poet, and politician who played an important role during the Patriottentijd as the editor of De Post van den Neder-Rhijn.

He therefore made an attempt to draw the attention of the Leiden poet Johannes le Francq van Berkheij by writing an Ode dedicated to this person in October 1774.

Together with twelve other amateurs, 't Hoen started the Utrecht society for poetry Volmaakter door den tijd (More perfect through time).

As he received a sinecure in the form of the stewardship of the Collegium Willebrordi, a boarding school associated with the Hiëronymusschool, in March 1777, he had more time to dedicate himself to his literary work.

Those sympathies were not shared by the regime of stadtholder William V, Prince of Orange who was related to the British king George III of the United Kingdom[Note 4] and therefore preferred a pro-British and anti-American/French policy.

't Hoen, sharing this feeling, started a publication, entitled De Post van den Neder-Rhijn, on 20 January 1781, which in the following six years would become a thorn in the side of the stadtholder's regime.

Most of the contributors to the journal (that was published weekly in a format of 8 Octavo pages, and cost 1 1/2 stuiver) used pseudonyms, however, because of the risk of prosecution for "sedition".

The weekly soon enjoyed a wide circulation (2400 copies per issue) in the entire Netherlands, probably because of its moderate and reasoned presentation of radical points of view.

He lived for short periods of time in Saint-Omer, Gravelines, Dunkirk, and eventually Watten near St. Omer, where he joined a "commune" of other Dutch Patriots, like his colleagues Wybo Fijnje and Gerrit Paape.

When the new French government ended his pension in 1793 't Hoen started a tobacco factory, and sold his real estate in Utrecht.

Together with the latter and several other Dutchmen he became active in French revolutionary politics as a member of the Jacobin party in Watten, though he kept apart from the turmoil of the Reign of Terror of Maximilien Robespierre c.s.

't Hoen supported this overturn of the political order, and he was as a result confirmed in his post as secretary of the new regional government that in 1799 replaced the old provinces of Utrecht and Gelderland with a department that encompassed both.

In this same period 't Hoen promoted religious emancipation of dissenters and Roman Catholics, who under the old Republic had been discriminated against in favor of members of the Dutch Reformed Church in De Nieuwe Post.