8 
Indiana University 
provinces were not agreed as to their policy and went to vary- 
ing extremes in their attempts to restore the constitution. But 
as long as Vergennes and Frederick the Great both lived, the 
innovations remained unchecked. Vergennes favored the 
party because they were pro-French and Frederick because 
they were anti-English, albeit his niece was the wife of the 
stadtholder. Frederick died in 1786 and Vergennes three 
months thereafter, in 1787. The Dutch Patriots now went to 
extremes, while the Princess of Orange began a scheme for 
the restoration of the stadtholderate. By violating one of their 
orders she provoked the Patriots to arrest her and then 
secured the armed intervention of her brother Frederick Wil- 
liam II, the new king of Prussia.^® The Dutch found that the 
Orange party had not only the support of Prussia but the 
favor of England and Sweden, while their old ally France, 
now controlled by new statesmen, was drifting helplessly 
toward revolution. The Dutch as usual disagreed as to meth- 
ods of resistance, and in the latter part of 1787 the little 
Prussian army of 20,000 men made a triumphal procession 
thru the Netherlands and restored the stadtholder to his 
power.i^ The whole thing was over in fourteen days and had 
cost the lives of not more than eight men.^® The Dutch Pa- 
triots made humble submission and promised to behave in the 
future. They apparently had decided that it made little dif- 
ference what kind of government that they had, as long as 
their commerce was not interfered with. There is no evidence 
that their commercial activities in any way slackened during 
these political changes. Vessels continued to come and go 
from the port of Amsterdam thruout the disturbances.^^ 
Desire for real voice in the government and for real nation- 
al independence were subordinate in Dutchmen’s minds to the 
opportunity to trade. While the Dutch were at war with 
England, Joseph II of Austria seized the opportunity in 1781 
of dismantling some of the barrier fortresses in the Austrian 
Netherlands which had been held by Dutch garrisons since 
1713.22 The Dutch ignored this tearing up of an ancient 
IS Davis, op. cit., Ill, 523. 
The Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (3 vols., Washington, 1837), 
III, 594. 
Davies, op. cit.. Ill, 528-540. 
Maryland Joairnal and Baltimore Advertiser, January 18, 24 ; February 26, 1788. 
22 C. Paganel, Histoire de Joseph II, Empereur d’Allemagne (Paris, 1843), 391. 
