µDE LANDING DER ENGELSCHEN. INVASION OF THE BRITISHDe landing der Engelschen. Invasion of the British
Daendels, with such men as he could muster, bravely marched to the front, and from behind dikes and in the narrow streets of ancient villages opened a guerilla warfare upon the invaders. French troops were reported to be on their way to help the Batavians, but could not arrive before a couple of days. The country was in a dangerous position, and yet the British-Russian invasion petered out completely, and, full of promise, was changed into a complete failure. This was due partly to the dilatoriness of the English commander and to the bad understanding between Englishman and Russian. But worst of all, the allies, for the second time, committed the blunder which had cost them so dearly just before the battle of Verdun. The young Prince of Orange had joined this expedition, and some enthusiast (if not he himself) had thought to improve the occasion by the issuing of a high-sounding proclamation. This document treated the entire revolution as so much personal wickedness, as the machinations of vicious and ambitious people who desired to change the country's government merely for the benefit of their own pockets. It called upon all fatherlanders to drive the French usurpers out and to return to their old allegiance to what the proclamation was pleased to call their "sovereign ruler." This sovereign ruler was none less than old William V. But if there was anything which the people as a whole did not desire, it was a return to the days of that now forgotten Stadholder. Federalists and unionists were bad enough, but the comparative liberty of the present moment was too agreeable to make the citizens desire a repetition of those old times when all the voters and assemblymen of the present hour were merely silent actors in a drama which was not of their making and not of their approval. And with quite rare unanimity the Batavians rejected this proclamation of their loving Stadholder and made ready to defend the country against the invader who came under the guise of a deliverer.
The hereditary Prince settled down in the little town of Alkmaar of famous memory and waited. He waited a week, but nothing happened except that the troops of the allies, badly provisioned by their commissary departments, began to steal and plunder among the Dutch farmers. And when another week had passed it had become manifestly clear that the Prince and his army could not count upon the smallest support from the Batavians. By that time, too, the French army had been greatly strengthened. Commanded by the French Jacobin Brune, who loved a fight as well as he did brandy, the defences of the republic were speedily put into excellent shape. Krayenhoff, our friend of the revolution of Amsterdam, now a very capable brigadier general of engineers, inundated the country around Amsterdam, while the English, under their slow and ponderous commander Yorke, were still debating as to the best ways and means of attack. When finally the allies went over to that attack they found themselves with the sea behind them, with sand dunes and impassable swamps on both sides, and with a strong French and a smaller Batavian army in front of them. And when they tried to drive this army out of its position they were badly defeated in a number of small fights; and a month after they had marched from Helder to Alkmaar they marched back from Alkmaar to Helder, shipped their enormous number of sick and wounded on board the fleet, and departed, cursing a country where even the drinking water had to be transported across the North Sea, where it always rained, and where, even if it did not rain, the water sprang from the soil and turned camps and hospitals and trenches into uninhabitable puddles.
DUTCH TROOPS RUSHING TO THE DEFENCE OF THE COASTDutch troops rushing to the defence of the coast
The Batavian army was proud of itself and was praised by others. The men had stood the test of the war much better than people had dared to hope.
But what good, apart from a little glory, had all their bravery done them? On land they had beaten the English, but in far-away Asia the British fleet had taken one Dutch colony after the other, until of the large colonial empire there remained but the little island of Decima, in Japan. Upon a strip of territory of a few hundred square feet the old red, white, and blue flag of Holland continued to fly. Everywhere else it had been hauled down.
On the 9th of November, 1799, Citizen Bonaparte, the successful commander-in-chief of the armies of the Directorate of France, decided that his employers had done enough talking and that the time had come to send them about their business. The Jacobin rabble in the street protested. Citizen Bonaparte put up two cannon. The rabble jeered at his toy guns. Citizen Bonaparte fired. The rabble fled whence it came. The next day the legislative body was summarily dismissed. The French Revolution was over.
Biologically speaking, Citizen Bonaparte was the second son of Madame Laetitia Bonaparte, née Ramolino, the wife of a Corsican lawyer of some small local importance. His spiritual mother, however, sat on the Place de la Concorde, knitted worsted stockings, and counted the heads which the guillotine chopped off. When his day of glory came, Bonaparte did not forget his faithful mother, and surrounded her with his signs of love and affection. But the foster-mother who had helped him directly to his glory, without whom he never might have been anything but the husband of the attractive Madame Josephine, he neglected, and when she seemed to stand between him and his success he dispatched her into the desert of oblivion, a region which during revolutionary times is never very far distant from the scene of momentary action.
What Napoleon Bonaparte knew about Holland cannot have been very much. Geography, in a general sense, was not his strong point. Like everybody else in Paris, he must have known something about the Batavian Republic, and, like everybody else, he must have received vague notions of the dilatory methods, the insignificant acts, and the clumsiness of the different Batavian missions which sporadically appeared in Paris. Ginstokers who prepared parliamentary revolutions as delegates from private political clubs, generals who left their posts and went trotting to Paris to arrange another upheaval in the assembly of their native country, were not the type of men in whom the future emperor delighted.
Of any sentiment or liking for the Dutch trait and character we find no vestige in Napoleon. There were one or two Dutch generals who won his favour, and one admiral even gained his friendship. He appreciated Dutch engineers because they could build good fortifications and excellent pontoon bridges. In general, however, the slow and deliberate Hollander greatly annoyed the man of impulsive deeds, and the tenacity with which these futile people defended their petty little rights and prerogatives, when actual and immense honours were in store for all men with devotion and energy, filled Napoleon with an irritation and a contempt which he never tried to conceal.
The French Dictator felt but one interest in the Dutch Republic—a material one. In the first place, he wanted the Dutch gold to use for his expeditions against all his near and distant neighbours. In the second place, he contemplated using the strategic position of the republic in his great war upon the British Kingdom. And as soon as he had been elected First Consul he approached the republic with demands for loans and voluntary donations, which were both flatly refused. The Amsterdam bankers were not willing to consider any French loan just then, and the Dutch assembly declared that it could not produce the 50,000,000 guilders which the Consul wanted. It was simply impossible. The Consul retaliated by a very strict enforcement of the terms of the French treaty by which the republic was bound to equip and maintain 25,000 French soldiers. This, in turn, so greatly increased the expenses of the republic that many citizens paid more than half of their income in taxes. It was indeed a very unfortunate moment for such an experiment. The second constitution was by no means a success. Of the many promised reorganizations of the internal government not a single one had as yet been instituted. The reform of the financial system existed on paper but had not yet come nearer to realization than had the proposed reorganization of the militia. The new system of legal procedure was still untried, and the new national courts had not yet been established. The codification of civil and penal law had not yet been begun. Public instruction was under a minister of its own, but it remained as primitive as ever before. The reform of the municipal government had not yet been attempted. The central government of the different departments had been put into somewhat better shape than before, but everything about it was still in the first stages of development. The constitution which had promised to be all things to all men was nothing to any one. The system of government which it provided was too complicated. It looked as if there must be a third change in the management of the Batavian Republic. General Bonaparte was asked for his opinion. General Bonaparte at that moment was going through one of the sporadic changes in his nature. He began to have his hair cut and pay attention to the state of his linen. He commenced to understand that a revolution might be all very well, but that a firm and stable government had enormous advantages. And if the rich people in Holland wished to drop some of their former revolutionary notions and make their government more conservative, they certainly were welcome to the change.
This time there was not even acoup d'état. The legislative assembly—the combined meeting of both houses—convened solemnly, like a house of bishops, and proposed a revision of the constitution.
On the 16th of March, 1801, a committee was appointed to draw up a more practical constitution, one more in accord with the historical development of the people. The committee went to work with eagerness, and with the French ambassador as their constant adviser. General Bonaparte was kept informed of all the proceedings, and everything went along as nicely as could be desired. But when the work was done the legislative assembly, after a very complicated discussion, suddenly rejected the new constitution five to one.
What the assembly could not do, the Dutch directors could do. Yes, but the difficulty was that two of the five directors seemed to be against revision. "Three directors are better than five," came back from Paris. The two opposing directors were informed that their opinion would no longer be asked for, and the three others hired a second-class newspaper man who had seen better days and ordered him to draw up a new constitution. Our distinguished colleague, who used to make a living writing political speeches for the members of the different assemblies, set to work to earn his extra pennies, and in less than the time which had been allowed him, his constitution, neatly copied, was in the hands of the three directors. They sent it to Paris. Napoleon changed a few minor articles, but approved of the document as a whole. Now, according to the rules of the old constitution, the document should have been sent to the members of the assembly for their approval. The directors, however, did not bother about such small details, and had the constitution printed and sent directly to the voters. The two discarded directors and the assembly protested. But this time there was not even a chance for defiance or for a heroic stand in parliament. The doors of the assembly were locked and were kept locked. The assemblymen could protest in the street, but for all practical purposes they had ceased to exist.
On the 1st of October, 1801, the vote of the people was taken. It appeared that there were five times as many nays as yeas. Therefore the nays had it?
Not while Consul Bonaparte resides in the Tuilleries.
How many voters were there in the republic? 416,419.
How many had voted in all? 68,990.
Well, count all those who did not vote among the yeas and see how the sum will come out then? A very ingenious method. The count was made, and then the yeas had it.
He new constitution was reduced to only 106 articles. The sovereign people, with all due respect for their votes, were deprived of most of their former power. The chief executive and legislative power was vested in a body of twelve men. They were appointed by the different provinces, which were reëstablished in their old form, with their old borders, and with most of their former local sovereignty. The two chambers were reduced to one legislative body of thirty-five members. It had the power of veto over the laws proposed by the executive, but could not originate laws nor propose changes. The individual ministers were abolished, but a cabinet was formed out of a council of many members, from three to six for each department. There was to be municipal autonomy. All religious denominations regained those possessions which they had had at the beginning of the revolution of 1795. All other matters of government, the exact form and mode of voting, and such other insignificant details were left to some future date when the executive would decide upon them.
On the same day, when the absent votes of the Batavian Republic saved the third constitution, the preliminaries of the peace between France and England were signed. After seven years of stagnation, the ocean once more was open to Dutch ships, and Dutch commerce once more could visit the furthermost corners of the globe.
The country again could go to work.
ARMED BARK OF THE YEAR 1801Armed bark of the year 1801
Here was a splendid dream of a rejuvenated country eagerly striving to regain its lost importance. But a milkman who comes around once in every seven years will lose his customers. And the Dutch trader, who as the common carrier and the middleman had been for many centuries as regular in the performances of his duties as the useful baker and butcher and grocer of our own domestic acquaintance, found when he came back after half a dozen years that his customers, tired of waiting for him, had gone for their daily needs to a rival and did not contemplate a return to a tradesman who had neglected them during so many years. And when the ships which for seven years had been rotting in the harbours had been sufficiently repaired to venture forth upon the seas, and when they had gathered a cargo of sorts, there was no one to whom they could go to sell their wares.
In the fall of the Dutch Republic we have tried to describe how, gradually, the Hollander lost his markets. This chapter upon our economic condition during the Batavian Republic can be very short. We shall have to describe how, driven out of the legitimate trade, the Dutch shipper entered the wide field of illegitimate business enterprises until at last he disappeared entirely from a field of endeavour in which honesty is not only the best policy but is also the only policy which sooner or later does not lead to ruin. The large commercial houses, of course, could stand several years of depression, but the smaller fry, the humbler brethren who had always kept themselves going on a little floating capital, these were soon obliged either to go out of existence altogether or to enter upon some illicit affair. Quite naturally they chose the latter course, and soon they found themselves in that vast borderland of commerce where honesty merely consists in not being found out.
THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANYThe Executive Council of the East India Company
At first they traded under neutral flags and with neutral papers. But the British during the prolonged war with France did not stick too closely to international law, and every ship that was under suspicion of not being a bona-fide foreign ship, but a Dutch ship under disguise, was confiscated, taken to England, and there publicly sold. Every variation upon the wide subject of fake papers, fake passports, and counterfeit sailing-orders was tried, but invariably these ingenious schemes were discovered by the British policemen who controlled the high seas, and finally this commerce had to be given up entirely as being too risky. Then all sorts of even more wonderful plans were developed by the diligent Dutch traders. Here is a scheme at once so brilliant and so simple that we must relate it:
Messrs. A. and B., honourable merchants from Amsterdam, enter into a partnership. A. goes to London and as an Englishman enters business. B. stays at home. A. equips a privateer. B. loads a ship and gets as much insurance as he possibly can. The ship of B. leaves the Dutch harbour and is captured by the ship of A. It is taken to England and ship and cargo are publicly sold. A. gets the profits of his buccaneering expedition. B. collects the insurance. The partners have in this way made twice the amount of their original investment, minus the insignificant loss on the ship. At the end of the year the two merchants divide the spoils and both get rich. This method had the disadvantage of being too easy. A deadly competition set in. Finally the insurance companies discovered the swindle and refused to insure. That stopped the business.
From that moment on the only way of doing business across the water was to take the risk of capture, to try to run the blockade of the British fleet in the North Seas and reach some safe foreign port. When the year 1801 came hardly a dozen ships which flew the Dutch flag dared to cross the ocean. Not a single whaler was seen off the coast of Greenland; the Dutch fishermen had deserted the North Sea; the channel was closed to Dutch trade; the Mediterranean, where once Dutch had been a commonly understood language, did not see any Dutch ships for many years; the Baltic, the scene of the first Dutch commercial triumphs, no longer witnessed the appearance of the Dutch grain carrier who during so many centuries had provided the daily bread for millions of people. This disappearance of the commercial fleet meant the absolute ruin of many industries which up to that time had been kept alive by such demand as there was for planed wood, nets, rope, tar, and the countless things which went into the making of the old sailing-ship. The eighteenth century had been a bad period for these industries. The beginning nineteenth century killed them. The great manufacturing centres like Leiden and Haarlem became the famousvilles mortesabout which we like to read, but in which we do not care to live. Hollow streets, grass growing between the cobblestones, a few old families slowly dwindling away and using up the funds of former generations; a population ill fed and badly housed, physically degenerating and morally perishing under the load of philanthropy by which it was kept alive; the whole life of the city, once exuberant and open, retiring to the back room where the sinful world cannot be seen; where, around the family tea table, and with the patriarchal pipe, dull resignation is found in that same Bible which once, and not so many years before, had inspired their ancestors to a display of vitality and of energetic enterprise which has been unsurpassed in European history. All optimism gone to make place for a leaden despondency and a feeling that no attempt of the individual can avail against the higher decrees of a cruel Providence. It is a terrible picture. It remained true for almost three generations. Let us be grateful that we in our own day have seen the last of it.
DUTCH SHIPS FROZEN IN THE ICEDutch ships frozen in the ice
In the colonies, as has been said before, the same state of ruin existed as at home. The West India Company had been bankrupt for almost a score of years. The colonies in South America, the rich sugar plantations for which once we sacrificed the unprofitable harbour of New York, were in the year 1801 being worked for the benefit of the British conqueror. Holland had lost them and had lost their profits. In the year 1798, by article 247 of the first constitution, the East India Company had been suspended. This enormous commercial institution, which with a minimum of effort had produced a maximum of results, went out of existence like a candle. Her loss was a terrible blow to Amsterdam. During the last years, when the affairs of the company were going from bad to worse, many loans had been taken up to meet the current expenses. Amsterdam, which had the greatest interest in hiding the actual condition of the company, had invariably provided these loans. Its City Bank still had an inexhaustible supply of cash, but with her trade in foreign securities ruined by the long wars, and her trade in domestic securities destroyed by the demise of Dutch manufacturing and Dutch shipping, with the enormous international banking business made impossible by the unsettled conditions of the revolutionary wars, the bank could only be maintained by very doubtful financial expedients. And when this pillar of Dutch society began to tremble upon its foundations, which were no longer sound, what was to become of the Dutch banks?
Failures of large commercial houses became disastrously frequent. Each failure in turn affected larger circles of business institutions. Even the expedient of using some of the ancestral capital became difficult where there was no market for the securities which the people wished to sell. Dividends upon foreign securities were passed year after year; taxes went up higher every six months. Such a long siege upon its prosperity no country could stand. And while the people were thus being impoverished, what did the government and what did the French allies do to bring about some improvement? France did nothing at all. The Dutch Government sometimes sent a mild protest to London and asked the British Government not to confiscate ships under a neutral flag, protestations which of course remained unanswered.
BATAVIA—THE FASHIONABLE QUARTERBatavia—The fashionable quarter
Here is another little sum in arithmetic which will explain more than a lengthy disputation upon the subject of our national ruin. It is a list of the current expenses and revenues for a number of years:
GUILDERSIn 1795 the expenses were51,000,000Revenue17,000,000Deficit34,000,000————
In 1796 expenses and revenue were the same.
In 1797 the expenses were42,000,000Revenue20,000,000Deficit22,000,000————
In 1798 the expenses were31,000,000Revenue21,000,000Deficit10,000,000————
But when in 1799 the English and Russians invaded the country and the revenues were appropriated according to the new style provided, the expenses were 80,000,000, the revenue was 36,000,000, and the deficit was 44,000,000. And these deficits, year after year, had to be covered by extra loans, until at last a heavy loan was carried to pay the dividends upon the original loan. Even with the three billions which the republic was reported to have gathered during former centuries, there is but one possible end to such a system of finance: That end is called national bankruptcy.
A COUNTRY PLACEA country place
Whether man is merely a chemical compound driven by economic energies or something higher and more sublime is a question which from the inexperience of our youth we dare not decide. But that something in human society is apt to go wrong the moment thehomo sapiensleaves the straight path between the economic too much and too little is a truth which we are willing to defend against all comers. The trouble during revolutionary times is that the well-worn, old-fashioned, narrow road is no longer visible. The old beacons of proper conduct have been removed, new ones have not yet been provided, and people wander hither and thither, and tumble from one extreme into the other.
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. During the joyful hysteria of the first few months this was not noticed. 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. But the change was too sudden and too abrupt, and in the end it did an enormous amount of harm.
SKATING ON THE RIVER MAAS AT ROTTERDAMSkating on the river Maas at Rotterdam
During the fifty years that had gone before, the patriotic press had shrieked contumelies upon the regents, who had refused to commit political suicide for a class which they, however, considered to be their inferiors. In this fight all good manners had finally disappeared. It had become a guerilla warfare of violent pamphlets—a muddy battle of mutual vituperation. The regents, however, although a degenerating class, had maintained until the very end a certain ideal of personal manners which had set a standard for all classes. The political upheaval of 1795 brought a number of men to the front who did not possess these outward advantages of a polished demeanour, and therefore despised them. According to them, the country needed men of pure principles (their principles) and not men who could merely bow and scrape. Any intelligent man could hold an office provided he was sound in doctrine (their doctrine). With the ideal of a cultivated man violently thrown out of the community the standard of the schools had at once suffered. It was no longer necessary to possess a general education to be eligible for a higher position. As a result, the universities had not been able to insist upon the old high standards, and when the universities weakened in their demands the other schools had immediately followed suit. This disintegration soon made itself apparent in all sorts of ways. Why write good books or good poetry when the people asked for and were contented with the cheaper variety? Why keep up an artistic ideal when the people wanted vulgar and cheap prints? The few good novelists of the eighteenth century were no longer read. Their place was taken by a number of scribblers, who, by flattering the commonest preferences and by appealing to the worst taste of the large army of voters, made themselves rich and their books popular. They gave the public what it liked. And the public thought them very famous men indeed. It was the same thing in art. We cannot remember ever having seen or ever having heard any one who had ever seen a single good picture painted during the Batavian days. The prints which commemorated the current events are so bad as to be altogether hopeless.
The sovereign people were flattered with a persistency and a lack of delicacy which would have incensed even the worst and most astute of tyrants. The masses, however, did not notice it, and bought the complimentary pictures with great pride in their own virtue. Posterity has thought differently about it, and whereas the prints of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries are carefully collected, the prints of the Batavian Republic are usually left as food to the industrious domestic mouse.
But aside from these merely ideal considerations (for a nation may be great and prosperous and yet lack entirely in artistic perception) the ordinary daily life of the community suffered a worse blow than it experienced through the loss of the colonies. During the old commercial days there had been a great many slippery customers who had managed to make their living in very questionable ways. On the whole, however, the leading merchants had maintained a fairly high standard of commercial integrity from which no one dared to avert too openly. Now, in the year 1795, all this changed. The new men were not bound to these iron rules of conduct. A good many of the old unwritten rules and regulations of trade were thrown overboard as being antiquated. Army contractors and questionable speculators entered into the field of Dutch politics and introduced the dangerous standards of people who have managed to get rich overnight. Nobody likes to see his neighbour eating a better dinner than he can afford himself. If a purveyor of army shoes could suddenly keep a carriage and pair and yet be respected by the men with whom he associated, why, the people asked, should we criticise his methods? He is not punished by social contempt. He is treated with great respect because he can entertain in such a very handsome way. And soon the young boy next door tried the same trick of speculation and began to feel a deep contempt for the old-fashioned and slow ways of his immediate ancestors.
TRADESTrades
The better element of the community in the general disorganization which followed the revolution found itself deserted, laughed at for its high standards, looked at with the pathetic interest which enterprising young men feel for old fogies who are behind the times. "The poor old people simply would not look facts in the face. Why insist on living in Utopia? Utopia was such a very dreary place." Until, finally, these excellent people either succumbed, which was very rare, or retired from active life, and within the circle of their own home waited for better days and more ideal times. And the general tone of Batavian society was indicated by a class to whom riches meant an indulgence in all the material things of which they had dreamed during their former days of poverty. Easy come, easy go—in money matters as well as in morals. The new class of rich people, living without any restraint, followed its own inclinations, but obeyed no set rules of conduct. The sudden influx of ten thousand French officers, and Heaven knows how many foreign soldiers, also brought a dangerous element into a single community.
It is true that the discipline of the French soldiers had been exemplary, but the men trained in the happy-go-lucky school of the Paris which had followed the puritanical days of the sainted Maximilian Robespierre did not assist in establishing a deeper respect for good morals. The old days of parsimonious living and respect for one's betters were gone forever. Under the new dispensation no one was anybody else's better, and everybody lived as well as his purse or his credit allowed him to.
During the first years of the republic a number of men had suddenly grown rich. These vulgar personages threw their money out of the windows in the form of empty champagne bottles. Outside of their house of mirth a motley congregation of hungry people hovered. They drank what was left in the discarded bottles; they feasted on the remains of the uneaten pastry; they dreamed of the golden days when luck should turn and they should be inside with the worshippers of the fleshpots. The best part of the nation, however, disgusted with these vulgar doings, retired from all active life. It preferred a dull existence of simple honesty to a roisterous feast on the brink of a moral and financial abyss. And quietly the good people waited for the great change that was certain to come, when the nation once more should return to a sound mode of living, and when the resplendent adventurers of the moment should have been relegated back into that obscurity from which they never ought to have emerged.
What can we say of the next five years—of the five years during which the Batavian Republic lived under her third constitution and outwardly exercised all the functions of a normal, independent state? Very little, indeed. Of course there is material enough. There rarely was a time when so much ink was wasted on decrees and bills and pamphlets discussing the decrees. Everything of any importance was referred to the voters, and therefore had to be printed. But of what value is all this material? Some day it may be used for a learned doctor's thesis. To the general historical reader it is without any interest. In name the republic was still a free commonwealth. In practice —we have repeatedly stated this before—it was a French province. The First Consul ruled her and gave his orders either through the Batavian minister in Paris or the French minister in The Hague. That such orders were ever disobeyed we do not find recorded. At times there was a little grumbling, but even if the noise thereof ever penetrated to Paris it was dismissed as the silly complaint of a lot of tradespeople who were always kicking. That was part of their business. The best answer to their remonstrances was an increase in the taxes—5 per cent. on this, 3 per cent. more on that, 20 per cent. on another article. Income, windows, light, air, newspapers, bread, tobacco, cheese—there was not an item that did not contribute toward making Napoleon's rule a success. For five years the republic, with its twelve executive gentlemen, ambled along. The better elements no longer appeared either in the assembly or in the colleges of the voters. The government gradually was left entirely to professional politicians of the lowest sort. The legislative body at once reflected this attitude of the more intelligent people to abstain from participation in the political life of their country.
It is true that the peace of Amiens made a momentary end to the French wars and brought about peace between England and the republic. But before the Dutch ships had been able to reach the Indian island war had again broken out, the colonies were once more captured by the British, and the Dutch coast was again blockaded. Bound to France by its disastrous treaty of 1796, the republic must follow the fate of the great sister republic. The people (we are now in 1803) had since the beginning of the revolution produced 600,000,000 guilders in taxes. They tried to convince the First Consul that they could not go on doing this forever. He, however, was able to suggest quite a wonderful remedy for their difficulties. The Batavian Republic must strengthen her fleet until she could defeat England and take back the colonies which that perfidious country had stolen. Very well! But the fleet could not be improved without further millions, and so the republic moved in a vicious circle which led to nowhere in particular but cost money all along that eternal line.
For a change, and to remind them of their duty, the Consul sent urgent demands for honorary dotations, for extraordinary dotations, for special dotations, or whatever names he chose to give to those official thefts.
The Exchange upon such occasions would fly into a panic. Couriers would race madly along the roads between The Hague and Paris. But invariably the end of all this commotion was a new command for the republic to pay up and be very quick about it, too. Continually during those five years do we hear Napoleon's warning: "If the republic refuses to pay, and refuses to obey my orders in general, I shall turn it into a French department."
Schimmelpenninck, very moderate in his views, not too enthusiastic about the Batavian form of government, and rather in favour of the American system, during those very difficult days represented his country in Paris as its diplomatic agent. He had to carry the brunt of those wordy battles about the increased taxes. Napoleon may not have been able to speak French grammatically; but he certainly did have at his command a varied and choice collection of Parisian and Corsican Billingsgate. Continually in his correspondence with the Batavian Republic the Consul flew into a rage, called everybody very unpolite names, insulted the persons and the families of the members of the executive, told everybody indiscriminately what he thought of them or what he would do to their worthless persons. The browbeaten executives could do nothing but bow very low, accept the insults in an humble spirit, and express their invariable loyalty to the man who called them a bunch of sneaking grafters devoid of honour, energy, and patriotism.
This policy after a while had a very bad influence upon the Batavian Government. People lost all hope for the future. All desire to start upon new enterprises was killed. What was the use? The fruits of one's industry were taken away for the benefit of the French armies. And any day might be the last. The Consul might have had a bad night, he might be out of temper, and "finis" then for the Republic of the Free Batavians.
The year 1805 came, and with it a demand for 15,000,000 guilders to be given as a loan, returnable in four years. Fortunately it was before the battle of Jena had shown the weakness of Prussia, and Napoleon did not dare to attack the republic too openly. But he had made up his mind that the present weak form of government could not continue. The large executive must be abolished, and a single man, be he a French general or a member of the House of Bonaparte, must be made the head of the republic. The republic alone seemed unable to walk. Napoleon would give her somebody for her support. Unfortunately there was no general available, and all the consular brethren were engaged elsewhere. For lack of a Frenchman a Hollander must take the job. There was only one Hollander whom the Consul (the Emperor since a few months) could trust and for whom he had some personal liking. That was the Batavian minister, Schimmelpenninck. The latter, however, had no ambitions of this sort and refused the offer to become Proconsul of the Republic. He pleaded ill health, a weakening eyesight. Napoleon refused to listen to his excuses. If Schimmelpenninck were unwilling to accept, then France must annex the republic. Whereupon the Batavian minister, inspired by the unselfish interest which he took in his fatherland, agreed to accept the difficult position. He sadly drove to The Hague along the heavy roads of a very severe winter, and he informed the twelve citizens of the executive body what the Emperor intended to do with him and with them and with the Batavian Republic. The executive must resign at once. As an executive body it had proved itself to be too large and too ineffective. As a legislative body it had done nothing of any importance. It must go. A new constitution (a fourth one, if you please), more centralized and more after the French pattern, must be adopted.
The executive, mild as lambs, approved of everything, said yea and amen to all the proposals of the Emperor. It informed the legislative body of the contemplated changes and advised the legislators that the appointment of Schimmelpenninck as Proconsul was the only way out of the difficulty. The legislative body, just to keep up appearances, deliberated for six whole days. Then it expressed its full approval of everything the Emperor proposed to do with them and for them. The new constitution, made in Paris, was forwarded to The Hague by parcels post, was put into type, and was brought before the electorate. The voters by this time did not care what happened or who governed them so long as they themselves were only left in peace. And when the time came for them to express their opinion 139 men out of a total of 350,000, took the trouble to say no, while less than one-twenty-fifth of the voting part of the population took the trouble of expressing an affirmative opinion. Out of every hundred voters, ninety-six stayed quietly at home. It saved trouble.
SCHIMMELPENNINCKSchimmelpenninck
Schimmelpenninck made himself no false ideals about his high office, which placed him, a simple man, in the palace of the Noordeinde (the present royal palace of the kings of the Netherlands), which surrounded him with a lifeguard of 1,500 men, gave him the title of Raadpensionaris, encompassed him with an iron circle of regal etiquette, and provided him with many things which were quite as much against the essential character of the Hollanders as against his own personal tastes.
For himself, the new Raadpensionaris asked for very little. He was careful not to appoint a single one of his relatives to any public office, and tried in the most impartial way to gather all the more able elements of every party around himself. He appointed his cabinet and selected his advisers from the unionists and the federalists, but most of all from among the moderates.
The Raadpensionaris in this new commonwealth of Napoleon's making was a complete autocrat. Provisions had been made for a legislative body of nineteen men, to be appointed by the different provinces; but this legislature, which was to meet twice a year and had resumed the old title of their High and Mightinesses, the Estates General, amounted to nothing at all. At the very best it was an official gallery which applauded the acts of the Raadpensionaris.
This dignitary and his ministers worked meanwhile with the greatest energy. A most capable man was appointed to be secretary of the treasury. He actually managed to reduce the deficit by several millions, and began to take steps to put the country upon a sound financial basis. Napoleon, however, did not fancy the idea of the republic getting out of debt too completely. If anything were to be done in this line he proposed an immediate reduction of the public debt. In the end, so he reasoned, such a reduction would be a benefit. At the present moment, as far as the Emperor could make out, the people through their taxes paid the money which at the end of the year came back to them through their investments in public funds. Reduce the national debt and you will reduce taxation. But however much his Majesty might advocate his pet plans, the commercial soul of the republic refused to listen to these proposals of such dangerous financial sleight-of-hand and the people rather suffered a high taxation than submit to an open confession of inability to manage their own treasury.
The army, for which the Raadpensionaris personally had very little love, was developed into a small but very efficient corps. This had to be done. Unless the army were well looked after, Napoleon threatened to introduce conscription in the republic, and to avert this national calamity people were willing to make further sacrifices and support an army consisting of volunteers. The navy, too, was put into good shape. A new man was at work in this department, a certain Verhuell, an ardent revolutionist, and the Hollander who seems to have had the greatest influence over the Emperor. During all the events between 1800 and 1812 Verhuell acted as the unofficial intermediary between the republic and the Emperor. He was a good sailor. In a number of engagements with the British his ships ably held their own water. But the Dutch fleet alone was far too small to tackle England, and the French fleet was soon lost sight of through the battle of Trafalgar.
Came the year 1806 and the defeat of the coalition. Ulm and Austerlitz were not only disasters to the Austrians; they had their effect upon the republic. Napoleon, complete master of the European continent, parcelled out its territory in new states and created new kingdoms and duchies without any regard to the personal wishes of the subjects of these artificial nations.
The Batavian Republic had been spared through the sentimentality of the French revolutionists. For several years it had been left alone because Napoleon still had to respect the wishes of Prussia and Austria. Now Prussia and Austria had been reduced to third-class powers, and the Emperor could treat the republic as he wished to. He sent for his Dutch man Friday, Verhuell, and talked about his plans. "Had the admiral noticed that during the war with the European coalition the French armies in the republic had been under command of his Majesty's brother, the Prince Louis Napoleon?" Mr. Verhuell had noticed the presence of the young member of the House of Bonaparte. So had everybody else. "Did Mr. Verhuell know what this presence meant?" Mr. Verhuell could guess. So could everybody else. Very well! Mr. Verhuell could go to The Hague and inform his fellow-citizens that they might choose between asking for the Prince Louis Bonaparte as their king or becoming a French department. With this cheerful message Mr. Verhuell repaired to The Hague, just a year after the Raadpensionaris had travelled that same road to assume the consulship of the republic. The Batavians were obliged to accept their fate with Christian resignation. Opposition of ten thousand Dutch recruits against half a million well-trained French soldiers was impossible. Furthermore, it is a doubtful question whether the people would have fought for their independence. There had been too many years full of disaster. The spirit of the people had been broken. They were now willing to accept anything. The only question to decide was how to get through this new comedy with some semblance of the old dignity. Schimmelpenninck, who was a very constitutional person, called together the grand council, consisting of the legislative body, the council of state, and a number of high dignitaries, and proposed that the new plan be submitted to the voters. The grand council voted him down directly. As it was, there had been too many elections already. The people must be left out of this affair. No good would come from their interference, anyway.