Holland - Thomas Colley Grattan
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
[Footnote 6: In all these naval battles we have followed Hume
and the English historians as to dates, which, in almost every
instance, are strangely at variance with those given by the Dutch
writers.]
The king of France hastened forward in this crisis to the assistance
of the republic and De Witt, by a deep stroke of policy, amused
the English with negotiation while a powerful fleet was fitted
out. It suddenly appeared in the Thames, under the command of De
Ruyter, and all England was thrown into consternation. The Dutch
took Sheerness, and burned many ships of war; almost insulting
the capital itself in their predatory incursion. Had the French
power joined that of the Provinces at this time, and invaded
England, the most fatal results to that kingdom might have taken
place. But the alarm soon subsided with the disappearance of the
hostile fleet; and the signing the peace of Breda, on the 10th
of July, 1667, extricated Charles from his present difficulties.
The island of Polerone was restored to the Dutch, and the point of
maritime superiority was, on this occasion, undoubtedly theirs.
While Holland was preparing to indulge in the luxury of national
repose, the death of Philip IV. of Spain, and the startling ambition
of Louis XIV., brought war once more to their very doors, and
soon even forced it across the threshold of the republic. The
king of France, setting at naught his solemn renunciation at the
peace of the Pyrenees of all claims to any part of the Spanish
territories in right of his wife, who was daughter of the late
king, found excellent reasons (for his own satisfaction) to invade
a material portion of that declining monarchy. Well prepared by
the financial and military foresight of Colbert for his great
design, he suddenly poured a powerful army, under Turenne, into
Brabant and Flanders; quickly overran and took possession of these
provinces; and, in the space of three weeks, added Franche-Comte to
his conquests. Europe was in universal alarm at these unexpected
measures; and no state felt more terror than the republic of the
United Provinces. The interest of all countries seemed now to
require a coalition against the power which had abandoned the
House of Austria only to settle on France. The first measure to
this effect was the signing of the triple league between Holland,
Sweden, and England, at The Hague, on the 13th of January, 1668.
But this proved to be one of the most futile confederations on
record. Charles, with almost unheard-of perfidy throughout the
transaction, fell in with the designs of his pernicious, and
on this occasion purchased, cabinet, called the Cabal; and he
entered into a secret treaty with France, in the very teeth of
his other engagements. Sweden was dissuaded from the league by
the arguments of the French ministers; and Holland in a short
time found itself involved in a double war with its late allies.
A base and piratical attack on the Dutch Smyrna fleet by a large
force under Sir Robert Holmes, on the 13th of March, 1672, was
the first overt act of treachery on the part of the English
government. The attempt completely failed, through the prudence
and valor of the Dutch admirals; and Charles reaped only the double
shame of perfidy and defeat. He instantly issued a declaration of
war against the republic, on reasoning too palpably false to
require refutation, and too frivolous to merit record to the
exclusion of more important matter from our narrow limits.
Louis at least covered with the semblance of dignity his unjust
co-operation in this violence. He soon advanced with his army,
and the contingents of Munster and Cologne, his allies, amounting
altogether to nearly one hundred and seventy thousand men, commanded
by Conde, Turenne, Luxemburg, and others of the greatest generals
of France. Never was any country less prepared than were the
United Provinces to resist this formidable aggression. Their
army was as naught; their long cessation of military operations
by land having totally demoralized that once invincible branch
of their forces. No general existed who knew anything of the
practice of war. Their very stores of ammunition had been delivered
over, in the way of traffic, to the enemy who now prepared to
overwhelm them. De Witt was severely, and not quite unjustly,
blamed for having suffered the country to be thus taken by surprise,
utterly defenceless, and apparently without resource. Envy of
his uncommon merit aggravated the just complaints against his
error. But, above all things, the popular affection to the young
prince threatened, in some great convulsion, the overthrow of
the pensionary, who was considered eminently hostile to the
illustrious House of Orange.
[Illustration: A HOLLAND BEAUTY]
William III., prince of Orange, now twenty-two years of age,
was amply endowed with those hereditary qualities of valor and
wisdom which only required experience to give him rank with the
greatest of his ancestors. The Louvenstein party, as the adherents
of the House of Orange were called, now easily prevailed in their
long-conceived design of placing him at the head of affairs,
with the titles of captain-general and high admiral. De Witt,
anxious from personal considerations, as well as patriotism, to
employ every means of active exertion, attempted the organization
of an army, and hastened the equipment of a formidable fleet of
nearly a hundred ships of the line and half as many fire-ships.
De Ruyter, now without exception the greatest commander of the
age, set sail with this force in search of the combined fleets
of England and France, commanded by the duke of York and Marshal
D'Etrees. He encountered them, on the 6th of May, 1672, at Solebay.
A most bloody engagement was the result of this meeting. Sandwich,
on the side of the English, and Van Ghent, a Dutch admiral, were
slain. The glory of the day was divided; the victory doubtful;
but the sea was not the element on which the fate of Holland
was to be decided.
The French armies poured like a torrent into the territories
of the republic. Rivers were passed, towns taken, and provinces
overrun with a rapidity much less honorable to France than
disgraceful to Holland. No victory was gained--no resistance
offered; and it is disgusting to look back on the fulsome panegyrics
with which courtiers and poets lauded Louis for those facile
and inglorious triumphs. The Prince of Orange had received the
command of a nominal army of seventy thousand men; but with this
undisciplined and discouraged mass he could attempt nothing. He
prudently retired into the province of Holland, vainly hoping
that the numerous fortresses on the frontiers would have offered
some resistance to the enemy. Guelders, Overyssel and Utrecht
were already in Louis's hands. Groningen and Friesland were
threatened. Holland and Zealand opposed obstruction to such rapid
conquest from their natural position; and Amsterdam set a noble
example to the remaining towns--forming a regular and energetic
plan of defence, and endeavoring to infuse its spirit into the
rest. The sluices, those desperate sources at once of safety
and desolation, were opened; the whole country submerged; and
the other provinces following this example, extensive districts
of fertility and wealth were given to the sea, for the exclusion
of which so many centuries had scarcely sufficed.
The states-general now assembled, and it was decided to supplicate
for peace at the hands of the combined monarchs. The haughty
insolence of Louvois, coinciding with the temper of Louis himself,
made the latter propose the following conditions as the price
of peace: To take off all duties on commodities exported into
Holland; to grant the free exercise of the Romish religion in
the United Provinces; to share the churches with the Catholics,
and to pay their priests; to yield up all the frontier towns, with
several in the heart of the republic; to pay him twenty million
livres; to send him every year a solemn embassy, accompanied by
a present of a golden medal, as an acknowledgment that they owed
him their liberty; and, finally, that they should give entire
satisfaction to the king of England.
Charles, on his part, after the most insulting treatment of the
ambassadors sent to London, required, among other terms, that
the Dutch should give up the honor of the flag without reserve,
whole fleets being expected, even on the coasts of Holland, to
lower their topsails to the smallest ship under British colors;
that the Dutch should pay one million pounds sterling toward the
charges of the war, and ten thousand pounds a year for permission
to fish in the British seas; that they should share the Indian
trade with the English; and that Walcheren and several other
islands should be put into the king's hands as security for the
performance of the articles.
The insatiable monarchs overshot the mark. Existence was not
worth preserving on these intolerable terms. Holland was driven
to desperation; and even the people of England were inspired
with indignation at this monstrous injustice. In the republic a
violent explosion of popular excess took place. The people now
saw no safety but in the courage and talents of the Prince of
Orange. He was tumultuously proclaimed stadtholder. De Witt and
his brother Cornelis, the conscientious but too obstinate opponents
of this measure of salvation, fell victims to the popular frenzy.
The latter, condemned to banishment on an atrocious charge of
intended assassination against the Prince of Orange, was visited
in his prison at The Hague by the grand pensionary. The rabble,
incited to fury by the calumnies spread against these two virtuous
citizens, broke into the prison, forced the unfortunate brothers
into the street, and there literally tore them to pieces with
circumstances of the most brutal ferocity. This horrid scene
took place on the 27th of August, 1672.
The massacre of the De Witts completely destroyed the party of
which they were the head. All men now united under the only leader
left to the country. William showed himself well worthy of the
trust, and of his heroic blood. He turned his whole force against
the enemy. He sought nothing for himself but the glory of saving
his country; and taking his ancestors for models, in the best
points of their respective characters, he combined prudence with
energy, and firmness with moderation. His spirit inspired all
ranks of men. The conditions of peace demanded by the partner
kings were rejected with scorn. The whole nation was moved by
one concentrated principle of heroism; and it was even resolved
to put the ancient notion of the first William into practice,
and abandon the country to the waves, sooner than submit to the
political annihilation with which it was threatened. The capability
of the vessels in their harbors was calculated; and they were
found sufficient to transport two hundred thousand families to
the Indian settlements. We must hasten from this sublime picture
of national desperation. The glorious hero who stands in its
foreground was inaccessible to every overture of corruption.
Buckingham, the English ambassador, offered him, on the part
of England and France, the independent sovereignty of Holland,
if he would abandon the other provinces to their grasp; and,
urging his consent, asked him if he did not see that the republic
was ruined? "There is one means," replied the Prince of Orange,
"which will save me from the sight of my country's ruin--I will
die in the last ditch."
Action soon proved the reality of the prince's profession. He
took the field; having first punished with death some of the
cowardly commanders of the frontier towns. He besieged and took
Naarden, an important place; and, by a masterly movement, formed
a junction with Montecuculi, whom the emperor Leopold had at
length sent to his assistance with twenty thousand men. Groningen
repulsed the bishop of Munster, the ally of France, with a loss
of twelve thousand men. The king of Spain (such are the strange
fluctuations of political friendship and enmity) sent the count
of Monterey, governor of the Belgian provinces, with ten thousand
men to support the Dutch army. The elector of Brandenburg also
lent them aid. The whole face of affairs was changed; and Louis
was obliged to abandon all his conquests with more rapidity than
he had made them. Two desperate battles at sea, on the 28th of
May and the 4th of June, in which De Ruyter and Prince Rupert
again distinguished themselves, only proved the valor of the
combatants, leaving victory still doubtful. England was with
one common feeling ashamed of the odious war in which the king
and his unworthy ministers had engaged the nation. Charles was
forced to make peace on the conditions proposed by the Dutch.
The honor of the flag was yielded to the English; a regulation
of trade was agreed to; all possessions were restored to the
same condition as before the war; and the states-general agreed
to pay the king eight hundred thousand patacoons, or nearly three
hundred thousand pounds.
With these encouraging results from the Prince of Orange's influence
and example, Holland persevered in the contest with France. He, in
the first place, made head, during a winter campaign in Holland,
against Marshal Luxemburg, who had succeeded Turenne in the Low
Countries, the latter being obliged to march against the imperialists
in Westphalia. He next advanced to oppose the great Conde, who
occupied Brabant with an army of forty-five thousand men. After
much manoeuvring, in which the Prince of Orange displayed consummate
talent, he on only one occasion exposed a part of his army to a
disadvantageous contest. Conde seized on the error; and of his
own accord gave the battle to which his young opponent could
not succeed in forcing him. The battle of Senef is remarkable
not merely for the fury with which it was fought, or for its
leaving victory undecided, but as being the last combat of one
commander and the first of the other. "The Prince of Orange,"
said the veteran Conde (who had that day exposed his person more
than on any previous occasion), "has acted in everything like an
old captain, except venturing his life too like a young soldier."
The campaign of 1675 offered no remarkable event; the Prince
of Orange with great prudence avoiding the risk of a battle.
But the following year was rendered fatally remarkable by the
death of the great De Ruyter,[7] who was killed in an action
against the French fleet in the Mediterranean; and about the
same time the not less celebrated Turenne met his death from a
cannon-ball in the midst of his triumphs in Germany. This year
was doubly occupied in a negotiation for peace and an active
prosecution of the war. Louis, at the head of his army, took
several towns in Belgium: William was unsuccessful in an attempt
on Maestricht. About the beginning of winter, the plenipotentiaries
of the several belligerents assembled at Nimeguen, where the
congress for peace was held. The Hollanders, loaded with debts
and taxes, and seeing the weakness and slowness of their allies,
the Spaniards and Germans, prognosticated nothing but misfortunes.
Their commerce languished; while that of England, now neutral
amid all these quarrels, flourished extremely. The Prince of
Orange, however, ambitious of glory, urged another campaign;
and it commenced accordingly. In the middle of February, Louis
carried Valenciennes by storm, and laid siege to St. Omer and
Cambray. William, though full of activity, courage, and skill,
was, nevertheless, almost always unsuccessful in the field, and
never more so than in this campaign. Several towns fell almost
in his sight; and he was completely defeated in the great battle
of Mount Cassel by the duke of Orleans and Marshal Luxemburg. But
the period for another peace was now approaching. Louis offered
fair terms for the acceptance of the United Provinces at the
congress of Nimeguen, April, 1678, as he now considered his chief
enemies Spain and the empire, who had at first only entered into
the war as auxiliaries. He was, no doubt, principally impelled
in his measures by the marriage of the Prince of Orange with
the lady Mary, eldest daughter of the duke of York, and heir
presumptive to the English crown, which took place on the 23d of
October, to the great joy of both the Dutch and English nations.
Charles was at this moment the arbiter of the peace of Europe;
and though several fluctuations took place in his policy in the
course of a few months, as the urgent wishes of the parliament
and the large presents of Louis differently actuated him, still
the wiser and more just course prevailed, and he finally decided
the balance by vigorously declaring his resolution for peace; and
the treaty was consequently signed at Nimeguen, on the 10th of
August, 1678. The Prince of Orange, from private motives of spleen,
or a most unjustifiable desire for fighting, took the extraordinary
measure of attacking the French troops under Luxemburg, near Mons,
on the very day after the signing of this treaty. He must have
known it, even though it were not officially notified to him; and
he certainly had to answer for all the blood so wantonly spilled in
the sharp though undecisive action which ensued. Spain, abandoned
to her fate, was obliged to make the best terms she could; and on
the 17th of September she also concluded a treaty with France,
on conditions entirely favorable to the latter power.
[Footnote 7: The council of Spain gave De Ruyter the title and
letters patent of duke. The latter arrived in Holland after his
death; and his children, with true republican spirit, refused
to adopt the title.]
CHAPTER XX
FROM THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT
A.D. 1678--1713
A few years passed over after this period, without the occurrence
of any transaction sufficiently important to require a mention
here. Each of the powers so lately at war followed the various
bent of their respective ambition. Charles of England was
sufficiently occupied by disputes with parliament, and the discovery,
fabrication, and punishment of plots, real or pretended. Louis
XIV., by a stretch of audacious pride hitherto unknown, arrogated
to himself the supreme power of regulating the rest of Europe, as
if all the other princes were his vassals. He established courts,
or chambers of reunion as they were called, in Metz and Brisac,
which cited princes, issued decrees, and authorized spoliation,
in the most unjust and arbitrary manner. Louis chose to award to
himself Luxemburg, Chiny, and a considerable portion of Brabant
and Flanders. He marched a considerable army into Belgium, which
the Spanish governors were unable to oppose. The Prince of Orange,
who labored incessantly to excite a confederacy among the other
powers of Europe against the unwarrantable aggressions of France,
was unable to arouse his countrymen to actual war; and was forced,
instead of gaining the glory he longed for, to consent to a truce
for twenty years, which the states-general, now wholly pacific
and not a little cowardly, were too happy to obtain from France.
The emperor and the king of Spain gladly entered into a like
treaty. The fact was that the peace of Nimeguen had disjointed
the great confederacy which William had so successfully brought
about; and the various powers were laid utterly prostrate at the
feet of the imperious Louis, who for a while held the destinies
of Europe in his hands.
Charles II. died most unexpectedly in the year 1685; and his
obstinately bigoted and unconstitutional successor, James II.,
seemed, during a reign of not four years' continuance, to rush
wilfully headlong to ruin. During this period, the Prince of
Orange had maintained a most circumspect and unexceptionable
line of conduct; steering clear of all interference with English
affairs; giving offence to none of the political factions; and
observing in every instance the duty and regard which he owed to
his father-in-law. During Monmouth's invasion he had despatched
to James's assistance six regiments of British troops which were
in the Dutch service, and he offered to take the command of the
king's forces against the rebels. It was from the application
of James himself that William took any part in English affairs;
for he was more widely and much more congenially employed in the
establishment of a fresh league against France. Louis had aroused
a new feeling throughout Protestant Europe by the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes. The refugees whom he had driven from
their native country inspired in those in which they settled
hatred of his persecution as well as alarm of his power. Holland
now entered into all the views of the Prince of Orange. By his
immense influence he succeeded in forming the great confederacy
called the League of Augsburg, to which the emperor, Spain, and
almost every European power but England became parties.
James gave the prince reason to believe that he too would join
in this great project, if William would in return concur in his
views of domestic tyranny; but William wisely refused. James, much
disappointed, and irritated by the moderation which showed his
own violence in such striking contrast, expressed his displeasure
against the prince, and against the Dutch generally, by various
vexatious acts. William resolved to maintain a high attitude;
and many applications were made to him by the most considerable
persons in England for relief against James's violent measures,
and which there was but one method of making effectual. That method
was force. But as long as the Princess of Orange was certain of
succeeding to the crown on her father's death, William hesitated
to join in an attempt that might possibly have failed and lost
her her inheritance. But the birth of a son, which, in giving
James a male heir, destroyed all hope of redress for the kingdom,
decided the wavering, and rendered the determined desperate.
The prince chose the time for his enterprise with the sagacity,
arranged its plan with the prudence, and put it into execution
with the vigor, which were habitual qualities of his mind.
Louis XIV., menaced by the League of Augsburg, had resolved to
strike the first blow against the allies. He invaded Germany; so
that the Dutch preparations seemed in the first instance intended
as measures of defence against the progress of the French. But
Louis's envoy at The Hague could not be long deceived. He gave
notice to his master, who in his turn warned James. But that
infatuated monarch not only doubted the intelligence, but refused
the French king's offers of assistance and co-operation. On the
21st of October, the Prince of Orange, with an army of fourteen
thousand men, and a fleet of five hundred vessels of all kinds,
set sail from Helvoetsluys; and after some delays from bad weather,
he safely landed his army in Torbay, on the 5th of November, 1688.
The desertion of James's best friends; his own consternation,
flight, seizure, and second escape; and the solemn act by which he
was deposed; were the rapid occurrences of a few weeks: and thus
the grandest revolution that England had ever seen was happily
consummated. Without entering here on legislative reasonings or
party sophisms, it is enough to record the act itself; and to
say, in reference to our more immediate subject, that without
the assistance of Holland and her glorious chief, England might
have still remained enslaved, or have had to purchase liberty
by oceans of blood. By the bill of settlement, the crown was
conveyed jointly to the Prince and Princess of Orange, the sole
administration of government to remain in the prince; and the
new sovereigns were proclaimed on the 23d of February, 1689.
The convention, which had arranged this important point, annexed
to the settlement a declaration of rights, by which the powers
of royal prerogative and the extent of popular privilege were
defined and guaranteed.
William, now become king of England, still preserved his title
of stadtholder of Holland; and presented the singular instance
of a monarchy and a republic being at the same time governed by
the same individual. But whether as a king or a citizen, William
was actuated by one grand and powerful principle, to which every
act of private administration was made subservient, although
it certainly called for no sacrifice that was not required for
the political existence of the two nations of which he was the
head. Inveterate opposition to the power of Louis XIV. was this
all-absorbing motive. A sentiment so mighty left William but
little time for inferior points of government, and everything
but that seems to have irritated and disgusted him. He was soon
again on the Continent, the chief theatre of his efforts. He
put himself in front of the confederacy which resulted from the
congress of Utrecht in 1690. He took the command of the allied
army; and till the hour of his death, he never ceased his
indefatigable course of hostility, whether in the camp or the
cabinet, at the head of the allied armies, or as the guiding
spirit of the councils which gave them force and motion.