The French, as we have said before, had not made war upon the nation but upon the head thereof. Exit the head; remains the nation. What was the position of the latter toward their noble deliverers? This was a question which had to be decided at once. The moment the French soldiers should overrun the entire country and should become conquerors, the republic was liable to be treated as so much vanquished territory. The republic knew of other countries which had suffered a like fate and did not aspire to follow their example. Wherefore it became imperatively necessary to "do something." But what?
In The Hague, as a last nucleus of the old government, there remained a number of the members of the General Estates, deliberating without purpose, waiting without hope for some indication of the future French policy. Wait on, Your High and Mightinesses, wait until your fellow-members, who are now suing for peace, shall return with their tales of insult and contempt, to tell you their stories of an overbearing revolutionary general and of ill-clad ruffians, who are living on the fat of the land and refuse insolently to receive the honourable missionaries of the Most High Estates.
Of real work, however, of governing, meeting, discussing, voting, there will be no more for you to do. You may continue to lead an humble existence until a year later, but for the moment all your former executive power is centred in a body of which you have never heard before—in the Revolutionary Committee of Amsterdam.
The Revolutionary Committee in Amsterdam, what was it, whence did it come, what did it aspire to do? Its name was more formidable than its appearance. There were none of the approved revolutionary paraphernalia, no unshaven faces, nor unkempt hair. The soiled linen, once the distinguishing mark of every true Progressive, was not tolerated in this honourable company. It is true that wigs were discarded for man's own natural hair, but otherwise the leaders of this self-appointed revolutionary executive organ were law-abiding citizens, who patronized the barber regularly, who believed in the ancestral doctrine of the Saturday evening, and who had nothing in common with the prototypes of the French revolution but their belief in the same trinity of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, with perhaps a little less stress upon the Equality clause.
No, the Revolutionary Committee which stepped so nobly forward at this critical moment was composed of highly respectable and representative citizens, members of the best families. They acted because nobody else acted, but not out of a desire for personal glory. The army of personal glorifiers was to have its innings at a later date.
Now, let us try to tell what this committee did and how the old order of things was changed into a new one. After all, it was a very simple affair. A modern newspaper correspondent would have thought it just about good for two thousand words.
Warship Entering the Port of Amsterdam
On Friday, the 16th of January, the day on which the French took the town of Utrecht, a certain Wiselius, amateur author, writer of innumerable epics and lyrics, but otherwise an inoffensive lawyer and a member of the secret Patriotic Club, went to his office and composed an "Appeal to the People." In this appeal the people were called upon to "throw off the yoke of tyranny and to liberate themselves." On the morning of the 17th this proclamation, hastily printed, was spread throughout the town and was eagerly read by the aforementioned people who were waiting for something to happen. During the afternoon of the same day this amount of floating literature received a sudden and most unexpected addition. General Daendels, the man of the hour, commander of a battalion of Batavian exiles, while pushing on toward Amsterdam, had discovered a print-shop in the little village of Leerdam, and, in rivalry with Wiselius, he had set himself down to contrive another "Appeal to the People." After a two hours' walk, his circulars had reached the capital and had breathed the genuine and unmistakable revolutionary atmosphere into the good town of Amsterdam. Here is a sample: "Batavians, the representatives of the French people demand of the Dutch nation that it shall free itself forthwith from slavery. They do not wish to come to the low countries as conquerors. They do not wish to force upon the old Dutch Republic the assignats which conquered territory must accept. (A fine bait, for this paper was money as valuable as Confederate greenbacks.) They come hither driven solely by the love of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, and they want to make the republic a friend and ally of France—an ally proud of her independence and her free sovereignty." When the Amsterdam Revolutionary Committee noticed the commotion made by these two proclamations, especially by the second one, it decided to act at once. Among the initiated inner circle the word was passed around that early the next morning, at the stroke of nine, a "Revolution" would take place. But before the arrival of the momentous hour many unexpected things happened. Let us try and explain them in due order.