178] 
wealth. It was through the inter- 
ference of England, leagued with 
Prussia, that the stadtholder, who 
had been expelled from the United 
Provinces, was restored in defiance 
of the manifest will of the Dutch. 
Thus a governor was imposed upon 
them, whom they could compare to 
no other than a lord-lieutenant of 
Treland, or a stadtholder of some 
Prussian distriét. He was the mere 
agent of those two powers, by 
whose impulse he was guided, and 
by whose power he was upheld in 
his authority, which he exercised 
entirely according to their direétions. 
Through their fata) influence, Hol- 
land had been precipitated into the 
present contest with France, against 
the well-known wishes of all the 
provinces, and. upon pretexts quite 
foreign to their interest. While this 
influence lasted, Holland could be 
viewed in no other light than asa 
dependence of England and Prussia. 
Tt was, therefore, ncumbent on the 
national convention, to put an end to 
this slavish and ruinous conneétion 
with those two powers, but especi- 
ally with England; which had, on 
the pretence of espousing the cause 
of the stadtholder, torn from the 
republic almost the whole of its 
possessions in the Indies and in 
America. What was still more in- 
sulting, the English ministry treated 
him avowedly as the sovereign of 
the Seven Provinces, though they. 
Must know that he was consti- 
tutionally no more than the captain- 
general of their armies, and the ad- 
miral in chief of their fleets. What 
was this but tyranny and usurpation 
in the extreme ? The pretensions of 
Prussia were at an end by the treaty 
it had coneluded with France: but 
those of England were in full vi- 
gour, and it eagerly seized every 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796. 
opportunity of doing all the damage — 
in its power to the people of the 
United Provinces ; who had, there~ 
fore, the clearest right to consider it 
as their most inveterateenemy. On_ 
these considerations, which were ob= 
vious to all impartial minds, the na= 
tianal convention ought to call forth § 
the whole strength of the nation, 
and use every effort to recover what 
England had so unjustly taken from 
it, rather by surprise than real i 
prowess. 1 
Such was the language of the red 
publican party, in Holland, which, | 
confiding in its strength, and on the 
support of the French, was deter. 
mined to improve to the utmost the jf 
opportunity that now offered, of 9) 
extinguishing radically, all the hopes #} 
and pretensions of the Orange fa- j} 
mily. In this determination, this }f 
party met with every encourage-— 
ment from the direétory, which anx- 
iously stimulated it to form a con-_ 
stitution explicitly exclusive of a ( 
stadtholder. qt 
The Dutch convention itself was 
sufficiently averse to the re-esta- 
blishment of this office, which, 
new-modelled as it had been, by 
England and Prussia, was become, 
in faét, a sovereignty. But however 
unanimous on this point, they varied 
on several others. The former in- 
dependence of the Seven Provinces _ 
on each other, and their separate 
and unconneéted authority over 
their respective territories and peos 
ple, bad so long subsisted without 
impairing the general union, that it 
appeared to many unnecessary, if 
not dangerous, to make any alterae 
tion in this matter, as it would affect: 
the mode of levying taxes, and bure 
then one province with the exe 
pences of another. To this it was; 
replied, that a firm and indissoluble 
union, | 
