Batavian Republic

“ The French troops which are quartered in the Hague amount to about twelve hundred men; and are under the command of General Victor, who distinguished himself greatly at the battle of Marengo. General Victor is commander in chief of the French forces in the service of the Batavian republic, and is out of comparison more respected than his predecessor, notwithstanding the important services which General Brune rendered to the republic. The French troops, which do not exceed at present eight thousand men, receive their pay from, and are wholly maintained by, the Batavian government. ”

“ During the Batavian Republic and annexation refuses to have anything to do with what he considers an illegitimate form of government. Man of great strength who, practically alone, arranges the Revolution of 1813, which drives out the French before the European allies can conquer the Republic. ”

“ Let us come down to plain facts. After three years of revolutionary rhetoric the Batavian Republic for all intents and purposes had become a French province—a province inhabited by rather backwoodsy people (the Batavian minister as chief Rube in the Follies of 1798, an enormous success) , people who simply never could make up their minds, whose very political upheavals had to be staged abroad, who had to be guided about like small children, and who only received some respect from their neighbours because they still had a few pennies in their pocketbook. ”

“ Of all the different systems of government—and even the best of them are but a makeshift—intended to bring comfort to the average majority, there is nothing more difficult to institute or to maintain than a sovereignty of all the people. It needs endless watching. It is a big affair which touches everybody. It is subject to more attacks from without and from within, to more onslaughts from destructive political parasites, than any other form of government. Take the case of the Batavian Republic. ”

“ Certainly, the Addington Cabinet committed a grievous blunder in not inserting in the Treaty of Amiens a clause stipulating the independence of the Batavian and Helvetic Republics. Doubtless it relied on the Treaty of Lunéville, and on a Franco-Dutch convention of August, 1801, which specified that French troops were to remain in the Batavian Republic only up to the time of the general peace. But it is one thing to rely on international law, and quite another thing, in an age of violence and chicanery, to hazard the gravest material interests on its observance. ”

“ In the Batavian Republic in 1795, as the Dutch expression has it, the locks were opened wide. Everybody could do what he pleased. The old rules of polite society were discarded. Batavians were no longer to be slaves neither to certain prescribed masters nor of certain well-defined manners. Of course when almost two million people, rigidly divided into innumerable classes, are suddenly transformed into so many equal citizens, a terrible social cataclysm must take place. ”

“ Our harmony, however, had near been interrupted by a Dutch colonel, a furious patriot, who was enraged to the last degree of indignation, that the commodore should heap civilities on the bitter foes of the Batavian republic. Every Englishman was a dangerous person ”

“ The people seemed to forget that all social questions are the result of historical compromises and have a historical growth—that they are not allowed to exist for the benefit of a single class of citizens. A Batavian Republic without titles and official ranks, without coats-of-arms and distinguishing uniforms, was no doubt very desirable and very noble and very highly humane. ”

“ An intercourse is kept up with the settlement of Batavia, chiefly through the means of American vessels, three or four of which arrive annually at Amsterdam laden with the produce of that colony; and notwithstanding it is probable it will be attacked by the English, the Dutch do not appear to entertain any fears for the safety of this, their most valuable establishment in India. The loss of their other colonies and islands affects them more for the disgrace which their capture has brought on the Dutch arms, than for any essential injury which the nation has thereby sustained. ”

“ The Batavian Republic was the first nation beyond the Atlantic, after the French, who sent an envoy in form to the Congress of America. On October 31, 1783, Peter John Van Berkel was received by them as minister plenipotentiary from the States-General of the United Netherlands. By the president and members of Congress, every mark of respect, cordiality, and friendship was shown ”

“ The term citizen is used to all persons of authority, when they are addressed in their official capacities; but in conversation, or private transactions, every one uses the appellation of mynheer, without fear or restraint. The old calendar is adhered to in all public ordinances, proclamations, &c. with the invariable addition of ——— year of Batavian liberty: and no alteration has taken place in the devices or legends of the coins of the United Provinces. ”

“ The splendid abilities of the first stadtholders, and their successes in wars and negociations, happily asserted and established with renown the independence of the United Provinces. If their enemies have accused them with justice of uniformly endeavouring to extend their authority at the expence of the liberties of the people, the lustre of their glories threw a veil over their ambition, and the solid benefits they conferred on the state were gratefully acknowledged by the sternest republicans. ”

“ Utrecht is one of the most agreeable cities in the Batavian republic, and somewhat larger than the Hague. On account of the pleasantness of its situation, and the imagined or real salubrity of the air, Utrecht is chosen by many persons who have made a fortune by commerce, and have the good sense, in the evening of their lives, to quit the bustle of trade for the tranquil pleasures of retirement, as the place of their retreat. ”

“ The sovereignty was declared to reside in the entire people; and their right at all times to change their government, to reform it, or to establish another, was solemnly asserted. The offices of hereditary stadtholder, captain-general, and admiral-general of the republic, as contrary to the rights of man, were abolished ”

“ It is an absurdity, therefore, to argue with Grotius concerning the unknown antiquity of the Batavian republic. The republic never existed at all till the sixteenth century, and was only born after long years of agony. The democratic instincts of the ancient German savages were to survive in the breasts of their cultivated descendants, but an organized, civilized, republican polity had never existed. ”

“ Whatever change takes place in the government of Holland, it must first receive the approbation of the rulers of France; but it is not probable that any alteration will be attempted, which shall assimilate the executive administration of the Batavian to that of the French republic. The consular government, as it at present exists in France, is entirely repugnant to the cautious and reserved genius of the Dutch nation, and would be highly offensive to the patriotic party. ”

“ The easy terms on which the British and Russian troops were permitted to evacuate Holland were loudly complained of by the Batavian directory, and strong insinuations against the integrity of General Brune were circulated throughout the republic by the party inimical to the English. These suspicions were countenanced by the known character of the general for rapacity, and the belief that he had obtained the command of the French army in Holland by corruption, consequently would not scruple to reimburse himself by the most nefarious means. ”

“ The people, worn out with the repeated exactions of the French, the destruction of their commerce, the loss of their colonies, and the arbitrary acts of the government, became impatient of a change in the system of affairs, and the discontents that reigned throughout the republic assumed a haughty and menacing tone. The condition of Holland under the administration of the stadtholder was invidiously compared with its degraded and abject situation under the directorial government, and exposed to the rapacity of France. ”

“ It is most honourable to all who were concerned in the subversion of the ancient government of the United Provinces, a government which had subsisted two hundred years, respected in its foreign and domestic relations, and enjoying all the advantages of prescription and long establishment, that not one drop of human blood was judicially shed on its overthrow. ”

“ On the establishment of a directorial government in Holland, many virtuous and enlightened patriots, disgusted at the new system of things, and not being able, under the circumstance of an irresistible foreign influence, to render their country further services, withdrew themselves from public affairs, to the infinite loss of the nation. Their places were occupied by another description of patriots, men who owed their consequence to the revolution ”

“ I am desirous to see what are the effects of French principles on a nation so sober and phlegmatic as the Dutch have always been represented; whether those theories of liberty which pleased me when a youth, and which I still most fervently admire, are, when reduced to practice, as delightful and invaluable as an ardent and unsuspicious mind conceived them to be. ”

“ In vain the stadtholder and the hereditary prince issued proclamation after proclamation, exhorting the Dutch to rise in a mass for the defence of their dear country [4] , their religion, liberties, and ancient laws. These pathetic addresses to the nation were ridiculed or disregarded; and wherever torpor and inactivity did not possess men's minds, the spirit which prevailed was hostile to the government and its allies. ”

“ Scarcely any thing tended more to exasperate the people against the old government than the neglect into which it had permitted the navy of the republic to fall. One of the principal accusations against the stadtholder was, that, listening to the suggestions of England, which dreaded to see the marine of Holland in a prosperous condition, the wants of the navy were not only unattended to, but every artifice was used further to enfeeble it. ”

“ We come not to make you slaves; the French, nation shall preserve to you your independence.
The armies of the republic shall observe the strictest military discipline.
All crimes and civil offences, of citizens against citizens, shall be punished with the most rigid justice. ”

“ To prevent popular meetings, at which the wishes of the people might have been loudly expressed, an obsolete law was revived, by which the citizens were forbid to alienable for the discussion of public affairs, in a season of national distress. This ordinance was issued when the French were on the frontiers of the republic, and at a time when the most desperate measures, for the security of the United Provinces, were deliberated on by the stadtholder and his party. ”

“ It was then ordered throughout the United Provinces, that three houses should furnish one man among them for the defence of the republic; but the antipathy of the nation to the stadtholder's government prevented the execution of this plan.
Under these circumstances of almost universal irritation and discontent, the intelligence of the Prince of Orange's flight was generally received with transports of joy. ”

“ The detention of Dutch ships and property in England, the contemptuous treatment of the deputies sent to reclaim them, and the hostile measures obviously intended to be pursued against the colonial possessions of the republic, conspired to increase in Holland the flame of hatred that had long gone forth against the British nation. Every measure was embraced with avidity that tended to strengthen the republic against its odious and ancient rival ”

“ When every article of subsistence was consumed, the bodies of the dead furnished a horrid food for the support of the living, and still the citizens of Leyden defended with invincible resolution their town. At length the Dutch confederates, having no other means of relieving their distressed countrymen, broke down the dykes of the Maese and the Yssel, and inundated the Spanish camp, and the beautiful country which surrounds Leyden. ”

“ A short time before the French crossed the Waal, which passage decided the fate of the republic, the stadtholder was invested with additional powers, which in some sort resembled those of the ancient dictators of Rome. But in obtaining the paramount object of his ambition, he alienated more and more the affections of his countrymen, and his proclamation commanding the people to rise in a mass, scarcely procured the additional strength of fifty recruits to the Dutch array. ”

“ To-day it is the cause of the people itself in which we labour, in which you all ought to labour. To-day it is not a faction, but the nation herself, who is victorious. We must direct, therefore, our view, not to the welfare of a few despots, but to the happiness of the whole nation. ”

“ But the survivors of his family possess none of the qualities requisite to create in their favour a party sufficiently powerful to overthrow the present system, and procure their recal. They may indeed recover the territorial estates and rights which belong to the house of Orange, but they can never hope, with any rational prospect of success, to regain that plenitude of power and extensive authority which formerly appertained to their family. ”

“ During one of the most glorious campaigns of which the annals of the world speak, the French army had already approached our frontier, when the natural force of our country, its rivers, its waters of every kind, appeared to retard in some degree, and during a certain period, their progress; — for experience has shewn, that nothing can resist the courage, the activity, and the indefatigable perseverance, of the French nation ”