Holland - Thomas Colley Grattan
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Several campaigns were expended, and bloody combats fought, almost
all to the disadvantage of William, whose genius for war was
never seconded by that good fortune which so often decides the
fate of battles in defiance of all the calculations of talent.
But no reverse had power to shake the constancy and courage of
William. He always appeared as formidable after defeat as he
was before action. His conquerors gained little but the honor
of the day. Fleurus, Steinkerk, Herwinde, were successively the
scenes of his evil fortune, and the sources of his fame. His
retreats were master-strokes of vigilant activity and profound
combinations. Many eminent sieges took place during this war.
Among other towns, Mons and Namur were taken by the French, and
Huy by the allies; and the army of Marshal Villeroi bombarded
Brussels during three days, in August, 1695, with such fury that
the town-house, fourteen churches, and four thousand houses,
were reduced to ashes. The year following this event saw another
undecisive campaign. During the continuance of this war, the naval
transactions present no grand results. Du Bart, a celebrated
adventurer of Dunkirk, occupies the leading place in those affairs,
in which he carried on a desultory but active warfare against the
Dutch and English fleets, and generally with great success.
All the nations which had taken part in so many wars were now
becoming exhausted by the contest, but none so much so as France.
The great despot who had so long wielded the energies of that
country with such wonderful splendor and success found that his
unbounded love of dominion was gradually sapping all the real
good of his people, in chimerical schemes of universal conquest.
England, though with much resolution voting new supplies, and in
every way upholding William in his plans for the continuance of
war, was rejoiced when Louis accepted the mediation of Charles
XI., king of Sweden, and agreed to concessions which made peace
feasible. The emperor and Charles II. of Spain, were less satisfied
with those concessions; but everything was finally arranged to meet
the general views of the parties, and negotiations were opened
at Ryswyk. The death of the king of Sweden, and the minority of
his son and successor, the celebrated Charles XII., retarded
them on points of form for some time. At length, on the 20th of
September, 1697, the articles of the treaty were subscribed by
the Dutch, English, Spanish, and French ambassadors. The treaty
consisted of seventeen articles. The French king declared he
would not disturb or disquiet the king of Great Britain, whose
title he now for the first time acknowledged. Between France
and Holland were declared a general armistice, perpetual amity,
a mutual restitution of towns, a reciprocal renunciation of all
pretensions upon each other, and a treaty of commerce which was
immediately put into execution. Thus, after this long, expensive,
and sanguinary war, things were established just on the footing they
had been by the peace of Nimeguen; and a great, though unavailable
lesson, read to the world on the futility and wickedness of those
quarrels in which the personal ambition of kings leads to the
misery of the people. Had the allies been true to each other
throughout, Louis would certainly have been reduced much lower
than he now was. His pride was humbled, and his encroachments
stopped. But the sufferings of the various countries engaged in
the war were too generally reciprocal to make its result of any
material benefit to either. The emperor held out for a while,
encouraged by the great victory gained by his general, Prince
Eugene of Savoy, over the Turks at Zenta in Hungary; but he finally
acceded to the terms offered by France; the peace, therefore,
became general, but, unfortunately for Europe, of very short
duration.
France, as if looking forward to the speedy renewal of hostilities,
still kept her armies undisbanded. Let the foresight of her
politicians have been what it might, this negative proof of it was
justified by events. The king of Spain, a weak prince, without any
direct heir for his possessions, considered himself authorized to
dispose of their succession by will. The leading powers of Europe
thought otherwise, and took this right upon themselves. Charles
died on the 1st of November, 1700, and thus put the important
question to the test. By a solemn testament he declared Philip,
duke of Anjou, second son of the dauphin, and grandson of Louis
XIV., his successor to the whole of the Spanish monarchy. Louis
immediately renounced his adherence to the treaties of partition,
executed at The Hague and in London, in 1698 and 1700, and to which
he had been a contracting party; and prepared to maintain the act
by which the last of the descendants of Charles V. bequeathed
the possessions of Spain and the Indies to the family which had
so long been the inveterate enemy and rival of his own.
The emperor Leopold, on his part, prepared to defend his claims;
and thus commenced the new war between him and France, which took
its name from the succession which formed the object of dispute.
Hostilities were commenced in Italy, where Prince Eugene, the
conqueror of the Turks, commanded for Leopold, and every day
made for himself a still more brilliant reputation. Louis sent
his grandson to Spain to take possession of the inheritance,
for which so hard a fight was yet to be maintained, with the
striking expression at parting--"My child, there are no longer
any Pyrenees!" an expression most happily unprophetic for the
future independence of Europe; for the moral force of the barrier
has long existed after the expiration of the family compact which
was meant to deprive it of its force.
Louis prepared to act vigorously. Among other measures, he caused
part of the Dutch army that was quartered in Luxemburg and Brabant
to be suddenly made prisoners of war, because they would not own
Philip V. as king of Spain. The states-general were dreadfully
alarmed, immediately made the required acknowledgment, and in
consequence had their soldiers released. They quickly reinforced
their garrisons, purchased supplies, solicited foreign aid, and
prepared for the worst that might happen. They wrote to King
William, professing the most inviolable attachment to England;
and he met their application by warm assurances of support and
an immediate reinforcement of three regiments.
William followed up these measures by the formation of the celebrated
treaty called the Grand Alliance, by which England, the States,
and the emperor covenanted for the support of the pretensions
of the latter to the Spanish monarchy. William was preparing,
in spite of his declining health, to take his usual lead in the
military operations now decided on, and almost all Europe was
again looking forward to his guidance, when he died on the 8th of
March, 1701, leaving his great plans to receive their execution
from still more able adepts in the art of war.
William's character has been traced by many hands. In his capacity
of king of England, it is not our province to judge him in this
place. As stadtholder of Holland, he merits unqualified praise.
Like his great ancestor William I., whom he more resembled than
any other of his race, he saved the country in a time of such
imminent peril that its abandonment seemed the only resource
left to the inhabitants, who preferred self-exile to slavery.
All his acts were certainly merged in the one overwhelming object
of a great ambition--that noble quality, which, if coupled with
the love of country, is the very essence of true heroism. William
was the last of that illustrious line which for a century and a
half had filled Europe with admiration. He never had a child;
and being himself an only one, his title as Prince of Orange
passed into another branch of the family. He left his cousin,
Prince Frison of Nassau, the stadtholder of Friesland, his sole
and universal heir, and appointed the states-general his executors.
William's death filled Holland with mourning and alarm. The meeting
of the states-general after this sad intelligence was of a most
affecting description; but William, like all master-minds, had
left the mantle of his inspiration on his friends and followers.
Heinsius, the grand pensionary, followed up the views of the
lamented stadtholder with considerable energy, and was answered
by the unanimous exertions of the country. Strong assurances
of support from Queen Anne, William's successor, still further
encouraged the republic, which now vigorously prepared for war.
But it did not lose this occasion of recurring to the form of
government of 1650. No new stadtholder was now appointed; the
supreme authority being vested in the general assembly of the
states, and the active direction of affairs confided to the grand
pensionary. This departure from the form of government which had
been on various occasions proved to be essential to the safety,
although at all times hazardous to the independence, of the States,
was not attended with any evil consequences. The factions and
the anarchy which had before been the consequence of the course
now adopted were prevented by the potent influence of national
fear lest the enemy might triumph, and crush the hopes, the
jealousies, and the enmities of all parties in one general ruin.
Thus the common danger awoke a common interest, and the splendid
successes of her allies kept Holland steady in the career of
patriotic energy which had its rise in the dread of her redoubtable
foe.
The joy in France at William's death was proportionate to the
grief it created in Holland; and the arrogant confidence of Louis
seemed to know no bounds. "I will punish these audacious merchants,"
said he, with an air of disdain, when he read the manifesto of
Holland; not foreseeing that those he affected to despise so
much would, ere long, command in a great measure the destinies
of his crown. Queen Anne entered upon the war with masculine
intrepidity, and maintained it with heroic energy. Efforts were
made by the English ministry and the states-general to mediate
between the kings of Sweden and Poland. But Charles XII., enamored
of glory, and bent on the one great object of his designs against
Russia, would listen to nothing that might lead him from his
immediate career of victory. Many other of the northern princes
were withheld, by various motives, from entering into the contest
with France, and its whole brunt devolved on the original members
of the Grand Alliance. The generals who carried it on were
Marlborough and Prince Eugene. The former, at its commencement
an earl, and subsequently raised to the dignity of duke, was
declared generalissimo of the Dutch and English forces. He was
a man of most powerful genius, both as warrior and politician.
A pupil of the great Turenne, his exploits left those of his
master in the shade. No commander ever possessed in a greater
degree the faculty of forming vast designs, and of carrying them
into effect with consummate skill; no one displayed more coolness
and courage in action, saw with a keener eye the errors of the
enemy, or knew better how to profit by success. He never laid
siege to a town that he did not take, and never fought a battle
that he did not gain.
Prince Eugene joined to the highest order of personal bravery a
profound judgment for the grand movements of war, and a capacity
for the most minute of the minor details on which their successful
issue so often depends. United in the same cause, these two great
generals pursued their course without the least misunderstanding.
At the close of each of those successive campaigns, in which they
reaped such a full harvest of renown, they retired together to The
Hague, to arrange, in the profoundest secrecy, the plans for the
next year's operations, with one other person, who formed the great
point of union between them, and completed a triumvirate without
a parallel in the history of political affairs. This third was
Heinsius, one of those great men produced by the republic whose
names are tantamount to the most detailed eulogium for talent
and patriotism. Every enterprise projected by the confederates
was deliberately examined, rejected, or approved by these three
associates, whose strict union of purpose, disowning all petty
rivalry, formed the centre of counsels and the source of
circumstances finally so fatal to France.
Louis XIV., now sixty years of age, could no longer himself command
his armies, or probably did not wish to risk the reputation he
was conscious of having gained by the advice and services of
Turenne, Conde, and Luxemburg. Louvois, too, was dead; and Colbert
no longer managed his finances. A council of rash and ignorant
ministers hung like a dead weight on the talent of the generals
who succeeded the great men above mentioned. Favor and not merit
too often decided promotion, and lavished command. Vendome, Villars,
Boufflers, and Berwick were set aside, to make way for Villeroi,
Tallard, and Marsin, men every way inferior.
The war began in 1702 in Italy, and Marlborough opened his first
campaign in Brabant also in that year. For several succeeding
years the confederates pursued a career of brilliant success,
the details of which do not properly belong to this work. A mere
chronology of celebrated battles would be of little interest, and
the pages of English history abound in records of those deeds.
Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, are names that
speak for themselves, and tell their own tale of glory. The utter
humiliation of France was the result of events, in which the
undying fame of England for inflexible perseverance and unbounded
generosity was joined in the strictest union with that of Holland;
and the impetuous valor of the worthy successor to the title
of Prince of Orange was, on many occasions, particularly at
Malplaquet, supported by the devotion and gallantry of the Dutch
contingent in the allied armies. The naval affairs of Holland
offered nothing very remarkable. The states had always a fleet
ready to support the English in their enterprises; but no eminent
admiral arose to rival the renown of Rooke, Byng, Benbow, and others
of their allies. The first of those admirals took Gibraltar, which
has ever since remained in the possession of England. The great
earl of Peterborough carried on the war with splendid success in
Portugal and Spain, supported occasionally by the English fleet
under Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and that of Holland under Admirals
Allemonde and Wapenaer.
During the progress of the war, the haughty and longtime imperial
Louis was reduced to a state of humiliation that excited a compassion
so profound as to prevent its own open expression--the most galling
of all sentiments to a proud mind. In the year 1709 he solicited
peace on terms of most abject submission. The states-general,
under the influence of the duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene,
rejected all his supplications, retorting unsparingly the insolent
harshness with which he had formerly received similar proposals
from them. France, roused to renewed exertions by the insulting
treatment experienced by her humiliated but still haughty despot,
made prodigious but vain efforts to repair her ruinous losses.
In the following year Louis renewed his attempts to obtain some
tolerable conditions; offering to renounce his grandson, and to
comply with all the former demands of the confederates. Even these
overtures were rejected; Holland and England appearing satisfied
with nothing short of--what was after all impracticable--the total
destruction of the great power which Louis had so long proved
to be incompatible with their welfare.
The war still went on; and the taking of Bouchain on the 30th
of August, 1711, closed the almost unrivalled military career
of Marlborough, by the success of one of his boldest and best
conducted exploits. Party intrigue had accomplished what, in
court parlance, is called the disgrace, but which, in the language
of common sense, means only the dismissal of this great man. The
new ministry, who hated the Dutch, now entered seriously into
negotiations with France. The queen acceded to these views, and
sent special envoys to communicate with the court of Versailles.
The states-general found it impossible to continue hostilities if
England withdrew from the coalition; conferences were consequently
opened at Utrecht in the month of January, 1712. England took
the important station of arbiter in the great question there
debated. The only essential conditions which she demanded
individually were the renunciation of all claims to the crown of
France by Philip V., and the demolition of the harbor of Dunkirk.
The first of these was the more readily acceded to, as the great
battles of Almanza and Villaviciosa, gained by Philip's generals,
the dukes of Berwick and Vendome, had steadily fixed him on the
throne of Spain--a point still more firmly secured by the death
of the emperor Joseph I., son of Leopold, and the elevation of
his brother Charles, Philip's competitor for the crown of Spain,
to the imperial dignity, by the title of Charles VI.
The peace was not definitively signed until the 11th of April,
1713; and France obtained far better conditions than those which
were refused her a few years previously. The Belgian provinces
were given to the new emperor, and must henceforth be called
the Austrian instead of the Spanish Netherlands. The gold and
the blood of Holland had been profusely expended during this
contest; it might seem for no positive results; but the exhaustion
produced to every one of the other belligerents was a source
of peace and prosperity to the republic. Its commerce was
re-established; its financial resources recovered their level;
and altogether we must fix on the epoch now before us as that
of its utmost point of influence and greatness. France, on the
contrary, was now reduced from its palmy state of almost European
sovereignty to one of the deepest misery; and its monarch, in
his old age, found little left of his former power but those
records of poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture which
tell posterity of his magnificence, and the splendor of which
throw his faults and his misfortunes into the shade.
The great object now to be accomplished by the United Provinces
was the regulation of a distinct and guaranteed line of frontier
between the republic and France. This object had become by degrees,
ever since the peace of Munster, a fundamental maxim of their
politics. The interposition of the Belgian provinces between the
republic and France was of serious inconvenience to the former in
this point of view. It was made the subject of a special article in
"the grand alliance." In the year 1707 it was particularly discussed
between England and the States, to the great discontent of the
emperor, who was far from wishing its definitive settlement. But
it was now become an indispensable item in the total of important
measures whose accomplishment was called for by the peace of
Utrecht. Conferences were opened on this sole question at Antwerp
in the year 1714; and, after protracted and difficult discussions,
the treaty of the Barrier was concluded on the 15th of November,
1715.
This treaty was looked on with an evil eye in the Austrian
Netherlands. The clamor was great and general; jealousy of the
commercial prosperity of Holland being the real motive. Long
negotiations took place on the subject of the treaty; and in
December, 1718, the republic consented to modify some of the
articles. The Pragmatic Sanction, published at Vienna in 1713
by Charles VI., regulated the succession to all the imperial
hereditary possessions; and, among the rest, the provinces of
the Netherlands. But this arrangement, though guaranteed by the
chief powers of Europe, was, in the sequel, little respected,
and but indifferently executed.
CHAPTER XXI
FROM THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE INCORPORATION OF BELGIUM WITH
THE FRENCH REPUBLIC
A.D. 1713--1795
During a period of thirty years following the treaty of Utrecht,
the republic enjoyed the unaccustomed blessing of profound peace.
While the discontents of the Austrian Netherlands on the subject
of the treaty of the Barrier were in debate, the quadruple alliance
was formed between Holland, England, France and the emperor, for
reciprocal aid against all enemies, foreign and domestic. It was
in virtue of this treaty that the pretender to the English throne
received orders to remove from France; and the states-general
about the same time arrested the Swedish ambassador, Baron Gortz,
whose intrigues excited some suspicion. The death of Louis XIV.
had once more changed the political system of Europe; and the
commencement of the eighteenth century was fertile in negotiations
and alliances in which we have at present but little direct interest.
The rights of the republic were in all instances respected; and
Holland did not cease to be considered as a power of the first
distinction and consequence. The establishment of an East India
Company at Ostend, by the emperor Charles VI., in 1722, was the
principal cause of disquiet to the United Provinces, and the most
likely to lead to a rupture. But, by the treaty of Hanover in
1726, the rights of Holland resulting from the treaty of Munster
were guaranteed; and in consequence the emperor abolished the
company of his creation, by the treaty of Seville in 1729, and
that of Vienna in 1731.
The peace which now reigned in Europe allowed the United Provinces
to direct their whole efforts toward the reform of those internal
abuses resulting from feudality and fanaticism. Confiscations
were reversed, and property secured throughout the republic.
It received into its protection the persecuted sectarians of
France, Germany, and Hungary; and the tolerant wisdom which it
exercised in these measures gives the best assurance of its justice
and prudence in one of a contrary nature, forming a solitary
exception to them. This was the expulsion of the Jesuits, whose
dangerous and destructive doctrines had been long a warrant for
this salutary example to the Protestant states of Europe.
In the year 1732 the United Provinces were threatened with imminent
peril, which accident alone prevented from becoming fatal to
their very existence. It was perceived that the dikes, which
had for ages preserved the coasts, were in many places crumbling
to ruin, in spite of the enormous expenditure of money and labor
devoted to their preservation. By chance it was discovered that the
beams, piles and other timber works employed in the construction
of the dikes were eaten through in all parts by a species of
sea-worm hitherto unknown. The terror of the people was, as may
be supposed, extreme. Every possible resource was applied which
could remedy the evil; a hard frost providentially set in and
destroyed the formidable reptiles; and the country was thus saved
from a danger tenfold greater than that involved in a dozen wars.
The peace of Europe was once more disturbed in 1733. Poland,
Germany, France, and Spain, were all embarked in the new war.
Holland and England stood aloof; and another family alliance
of great consequence drew still closer than ever the bonds of
union between them. The young Prince of Orange, who in 1728 had
been elected stadtholder of Groningen and Guelders, in addition
to that of Friesland which had been enjoyed by his father, had
in the year 1734 married the princess Anne, daughter of George
II. of England; and by thus adding to the consideration of the
House of Nassau, had opened a field for the recovery of all its
old distinctions.
The death of the emperor Charles VI., in October, 1740, left his
daughter, the archduchess Maria Theresa, heiress of his throne
and possessions. Young, beautiful, and endowed with qualities of
the highest order, she was surrounded with enemies whose envy
and ambition would have despoiled her of her splendid rights.
Frederick of Prussia, surnamed the Great, in honor of his abilities
rather than his sense of justice, the electors of Bavaria and
Saxony, and the kings of Spain and Sardinia, all pressed forward
to the spoliation of an inheritance which seemed a fair play for
all comers. But Maria Theresa, first joining her husband, Duke
Francis of Lorraine, in her sovereignty, but without prejudice to
it, under the title of co-regent, took an attitude truly heroic.
When everything seemed to threaten the dismemberment of her states,
she threw herself upon the generous fidelity of her Hungarian
subjects with a dignified resolution that has few examples. There
was imperial grandeur even in her appeal to their compassion.
The results were electrical; and the whole tide of fortune was
rapidly turned.
England and Holland were the first to come to the aid of the
young and interesting empress. George II., at the head of his
army, gained the victory of Dettingen, in support of her quarrel,
in 1743; the states-general having contributed twenty thousand
men and a large subsidy to her aid. Louis XV. resolved to throw
his whole influence into the scale against these generous efforts
in the princess's favor; and he invaded the Austrian Netherlands
in the following year. Marshal Saxe commanded under him, and at
first carried everything before him. Holland, having furnished
twenty thousand troops and six ships of war to George II. on
the invasion of the young pretender, was little in a state to
oppose any formidable resistance to the enemy that threatened
her own frontiers. The republic, wholly attached for so long
a period to pursuits of peace and commerce, had no longer good
generals nor effective armies; nor could it even put a fleet of
any importance to sea. Yet with all these disadvantages it would
not yield to the threats nor the demands of France; resolved
to risk a new war rather than succumb to an enemy it had once
so completely humbled and given the law to.