Studies in American History 
7 
during- the war. They could carry this on just as extensively 
as they could evade the English. What they did want was to 
insure themselves against losing the American trade when 
America became independent by some kind of understanding. 
This, the terms of the treaty would provide for as soon as 
ratified by the Netherlands and the sovereign independent 
United States. Now, however, that the Dutch were already at 
war with the English, they could advance a step farther. The 
merchants of Scheidam now wrote to Adams and reminded 
him once more of the similarity of the American struggle for 
independence to that of the Dutch and incidentally called his 
attention to some goods that their city produced that Amer- 
icans might buy.^^ The clumsy, slow-working government of 
the Netherlands succeeded in recognizing the independence of 
the United States, April 19, 1782, and soon thereafter, October 
8, 1782, in signing a treaty with the United States.^^ The whole 
basis for this, the second treaty entered into by the United 
States, was commercial. Commerce between the United 
States and the Netherlands was now unrestricted and un- 
hampered except by the English navy. Before the end of the 
war one-half of the shipping in some of the American ports 
was Dutch.^® 
The conduct of the Dutch at home from 1783 to 1789 was 
of very much the same character as during the American 
Revolution. The quarreling of the factions or parties con- 
tinued. Fortunately they could quarrel and argue to an al- 
most unbelievable extent without fighting, and on the one or 
two occasions when they got to fighting, few people indeed 
were hurt. The breach with England and the shrewd diplo- 
macy of the French minister De Vauguyon had thoroly 
aroused the merchant, aristocratic, “Patriot”, or pro-French 
party against the Orange, stadtholder, or pro-English party 
and had for the time given the ascendancy to the former party. 
The stadtholder’s tutor and adviser, the Duke of Brunswick, 
was driven from the country, and the stadtholder ’s power 
was considerably reduced. The different factions, cities, and 
Mathew Carey, American Museum or Reiyository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive 
Pieces, or Annual Register (Philadelphia, 1787-1792), VII, Appendix II, 22. 
Adams, op. cit., I, 348, 352. 
Boston Gazette, June 4, 1783. 
Davies, The History of Holland and the Dutch Nation, III, 495, 496. 
