4 
Indiana University 
restoration of the constitution to what it had been before 1747, 
when the stadtholder’s powers had been considerably in- 
creased/ In practice, however, there was no unanimity as to 
just what this constitution had been. For practical purposes, 
the Patriot party was composed of the aristocratic, bour- 
geoisie, pro-French, commercial and industrial elements. Op- 
posed to them was the stadtholderate party composed of some 
of the nobles, most of the peasants, certain cities and localities 
attached to the Orange family and to the English alliance. 
The activities of neither party seem to have had much to do 
with patriotism. 2 But when in any way their commercial op- 
portunities were restricted, whether by their own government 
or by some foreign government, whether for justifiable rea- 
sons or otherwise, they soon bestirred themselves. 
The spirit of these people is well brought out in the story 
of their relations to the American Revolution. The details of 
these activities have already been set forth in exhaustive 
treatises, and will not be repeated here.® The Dutch professed 
to see the similarity of the struggle of the Americans against 
England to that of the Netherlands against Spain. But they 
yielded less to sentiment and to the desire to see liberty tri- 
umph than did many of the subjects of the absolute king of 
France. To be sure, the Dutch could not well, at first, favor 
the American cause openly for they were embarrassed by the 
old treaties of alliance with England and by the connections 
of the stadtholder with the English government. But there 
is no doubt that the Dutch really preferred to make noncom- 
mittal assertions of friendship to all parties concerned and then 
to sell munitions to all and to fatten upon the traffic. At the 
beginning of the struggle between England and her colonies 
the Dutch professed to choose a neutral course, at the same 
time claiming still to adhere to their old treaties with Eng- 
land.^ By the terms of the old treaties of 1678 and 1716 they 
were obliged to give England military aid under certain con- 
1 C. M. Davies, The History of Holland and the Dutch Nation (3 vols., London, 
1851), III, 373. 
2 Ihid., Ill, 466 ; Friederich Edler, The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution 
(Baltimore, 1911) (Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science), 
XXIX, 12. 
^Ibid.; J. F, Jamieson, “St. Eustatius in the American Revolution”, in American 
Historical Revieiv, VIH, 683 (July, 1903). 
^ Sir J. York to Lord Suffolk, November 25, 1777 ; December 24, 1776 ; in Sparks 
MSS., LXXH. 
