guarantee the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VI. This
step led in 1743 to their being involved in the War of the
War of the Austrian Succession.
Revolution
of 1747.
William IV.
Austrian Succession, and thus being drawn into hostilities
with France, which invaded the barrier country.
In 1744 they formed with Great Britain, Austria and
Saxony, a Quadruple Alliance, and put a contingent
of troops in the field. The Dutch took an active part in the
campaign of 1745 and suffered heavily at Fontenoy, after which
battle Marshal Saxe overran the Austrian Netherlands. The
French captured all the barrier towns, and in 1747
entered Dutch Flanders and made an easy conquest.
The United Provinces, as in 1672, seemed to lie at the
mercy of their enemies, and as in that eventful year,
popular feeling broke down the opposition of the burgher
oligarchies, and turned to William IV., prince of Orange, as the
saviour of the state. John William Friso had died
young in 1711, leaving a posthumous son, William
Charles Henry Friso, who was duly elected stadholder
by the two provinces, Friesland and Groningen, which were
always faithful to his family, and in 1722 he became also, though
with very limited powers, stadholder of Gelderland. The other
provinces, however, under pressure from Holland, bound themselves
not to elect stadholders, and they refused to revive the
office of captain-general of the Union. By the conquest of
Dutch Flanders Zeeland was threatened, and the states of that
province, in which there were always many Orange partisans,
elected (April 1747) William stadholder, captain-general and
admiral of Zeeland. The example once given was infectious,
and was followed in rapid succession by Holland, Utrecht and
Overysel. Finally the States-General (May 4) appointed the
prince, who was the first member of his family to be stadholder
of all the seven provinces, captain and admiral-general of
the Union, and a little later these offices were declared hereditary
in both the male and female lines.
William IV., though not a man of great ability, was sincerely
anxious to do his utmost for securing the maintenance of peace,
and the development of the resources and commercial
prosperity of the country, and his powerful dynastic
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.
connexions (he had married Anne, eldest daughter
of George II.) gave him weight in the councils of
Europe. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, in which the
influence of Great Britain was exerted on behalf of the States,
though it nominally restored the old condition of things, left
the Provinces crippled by debt, and fallen low from their old
position among the nations. At first the stadholder’s efforts
to promote the trade and welfare of the country were hampered
by the distrust and opposition of Amsterdam, and other strongholds
Death of William IV.
Anne of England Regent.
of anti-Orange feeling, and just as his good
intentions were becoming more generally recognized,
William unfortunately died, on the 22nd of October
1751, aged forty years, leaving his three-year-old son,
William V., heir to his dignities. The princess Anne of England
became regent, but she had a difficult part to play, and on the
outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in which the
Provinces were determined to maintain neutrality,
her English leanings brought much unpopularity upon
her. She died in 1759, and for the next seven years
the regency passed into the hands of the States, and the
government was practically stadholderless.
In 1766 William V. was declared to be of age; and his accession to power was generally welcomed. He was, however, a weak man, without energy or resolution, and he allowed himself to be entirely led by his old guardian the William V. duke of Brunswick, and by his wife Frederica Wilhelmina of Prussia, a woman of marked ability, to whom he entirely deferred. In the American War of Independence William’s sympathies were strongly on the English side, while those of the majority of the Dutch people were with the revolted colonies. It is, however, certain that nothing would have driven the Provinces to take part in the war but for the overbearing attitude of the British government with regard to the right of neutral shipping upon the seas, and the heavy losses sustained by Dutch commerce at the hands of British privateers. The The Armed Neutrality. famous agreement, known as the “Armed Neutrality,” with which in 1780 the States of the continent at the instigation of Catherine II. of Russia replied to the maritime claims put forward by Great Britain drew the Provinces once more into the arena of European politics. Every effort was made by the English to prevent the Dutch from joining the league, and in this they were assisted by the stadholder, but at last the States-General, though only by the bare majority of four provinces against three, determined to throw in their lot with the opponents of England. War with England. Nothing could have been more unfortunate, for the country was not ready for war, and party spirit was too strong for united action to be taken or vigorous preparations to be made. When war broke out Dutch commerce was destroyed, and the Dutch colonies were at the mercy of the English fleet without the possibility of a blow being struck in their defence. An indecisive, but bravely fought action with Admiral Parker at the Dogger Bank showed, however, that the Dutch seamen had lost none of their old dogged courage, and did much to soothe the national sense of humiliation. In the negotiations Peace of Paris. of the Treaty of Paris (1783) the Dutch found themselves abandoned by their allies, and compelled to accept the disadvantageous but not ungenerous terms accorded to them by Great Britain. They had to sacrifice some of their East Indian possessions and to concede to the English freedom of trade in the Eastern seas.
One result of this humiliating and disastrous war was the
strengthening of the hands of the anti-Orange burgher-regents,
who had now arrogated to themselves the name of
“patriots.” It was they, and not the stadholder, who
The “Patriot” Party.
Intervention
of the King of Prussia.
Difficulty with the Emperor.
had been mainly responsible for the Provinces joining
“the Armed Neutrality,” but the consequences of the
war, in which this act had involved them, was largely visited
upon the prince of Orange. The “patriot” party did their
utmost to curtail his prerogatives, and harass him with petty
insults, and at last the Prussian king was obliged to
interfere to save his niece, who was even more unpopular
than her weak husband, from being driven
from the country. In 1784 the emperor Joseph II.
took advantage of the dissensions in the Provinces to
raise the question of the opening of the Scheldt. He himself
was, however, no more prepared for attack than the Republic
for defence, but the Dutch had already sunk so low,
that they agreed to pay a heavy indemnity to induce
the Austrians to drop a demand they were unable to
enforce. To hold the mouth of the Scheldt and
prevent at all costs a revival of Antwerp as a commercial port
had been for two centuries a cardinal point of Dutch policy.
This difficulty removed, the agitation of the “patriots” against
the stadholderate form of government increased in violence, and
William speedily found his position untenable. An insult offered
to the prince of Orange in 1787 led to an invasion
of the country by a Prussian army. Amsterdam
capitulated, the country was occupied, and the patriot
Prussian Invasion.
Restoration
to power of William V.
leaders declared incapable of holding any office. The Orange
party was completely triumphant, and William V., under the
protection of Prussia and England, with which states
the United Provinces were compelled to ally themselves,
was restored to power. It was, however, impossible
to make the complicated and creaking machinery of
the constitution of the worn-out republic of the United Netherlands
work smoothly, and in all probability it would have been
within a very short time replaced by an hereditary monarchy,
had not the cataclysm of the French Revolution swept it away
from its path, never to be revived.
When war broke out between the French revolutionary government and the coalition of kings, the Provinces remained neutral as long as they could. It was not till Dumouriez had overrun all the Austrian Netherlands The French invade the Netherlands. in 1792, and had thrown open the passage of the Scheldt, that they were drawn into the war. The patriot party sided with
