“That further, if every thing shall appear as has been stated by the said clerks, and sterling being converted into stock, the treasurer of the city will, in addition, owe to the bank, and for which it was made debtor at the closing of the accounts above alluded to,
| the sum of | 38,358 2 0 |
| And what it owed at the actual closing of the accounts, | 155,314 6 8 |
| Making together, banco, Florins | 193,672 8 8 |
“That there is also due, from the said bank, 227,264 2 8, for which bonds were originally given; but according to the clerk’s statement were burnt; but for which the city notwithstanding paid interest annually to the bank.
“That it is nevertheless obvious, that the city is responsible for this sum, as well as for the whole, as it ought to be considered with respect to it, not only as guarantee, but as actual debtor to the bank.
“That moreover, among other things in the said bank, there has been found in substance all the specie for which accountable receipts have been given, agreeable to the list made out, and delivered to the committee of commerce and marine by the cashiers of the bank, and which can, in consequence, be at all times drawn out by the holders of the said receipts, in exchange for them, when it shall please them so to do.
“The aforesaid provisional representatives have, therefore, not only taken the requisite, and most efficacious measures, that henceforward there shall not be delivered from, nor advanced by, the said bank, contrary to its original institution, any specie whatsoever, by any authority, either as a loan, or in any other illegal manner; but also that the said bonds, lodged in the said bank as securities, as aforesaid, shall be liquidated as soon as possible, and generally, that this city, as debtor to the bank, shall, with all practicable dispatch, discharge in cash the balance of its account with the said bank, which being done, the provisional representatives declare, that there can exist no deficiency of any kind soever; and that they will, without delay, take into their serious consideration, and will carry into immediate effect, the means to obtain this end.”
For this sum, amounting to upwards of nine millions of florins, the proper investments had been made, but of the deposits, which ought to have been permanent, in consequence of the expiration of the receipts, not a florin remained in the caves of the bank. It appeared that the directors, like the magistrate who presided at the execution of the murderer, beneficially for the state, no doubt had departed from the strict letter of the law, and instead of suffering so much wealth to remain in a state of unproductive inertion, they had duplicated the energies of credit by judicious and advantageous loans of it to a variety of merchants and tradesmen. This statement excited the highest indignation against the directors, who were, in the violence of that party-spirit which then raged in Holland, branded with every epithet which appertains to the real national defaulter. The deficiency thus explained could have no injurious influence upon the bank, with regard to the cash receipts which were unexpired, unless the debts due to the bank, upon such accommodations, should not be regularly discharged. But no explanation could appease the popular fury, which connected this politic deviation from the strict letter of an unwise law into high treason against the state, and loudly demanded, that all the directors of the bank, and persons entrusted with the management of any other public fund, should be put under arrest: to such a height was this spirit carried, that many of the members of the old government would have been sacrificed to the animosity of faction, and revolutionary vengeance, had not the French general interfered, and by a humane proclamation addressed to people enlightened by the benign effects of public education, averted their anger.
On the 16th of February, 1795, upon the promulgation of the abolition of the stadtholderate, a general fraternization took place in Amsterdam, and a complete oblivion of all public animosities. This federation was celebrated, as I was informed, with all imaginable pomp. The carillons in the towers of the Stadt-house, and the principal churches, played the most enchanting patriotic airs, the tri-coloured flag waived upon their spires, and salutes from the bastions, artillery, and men of war, augmented the vivacity of this eventful day. Nothing could surpass the grotesque drollery exhibited in various parts of the city: the gaiety of the French character completely electrified the sobriety of the Batavian. Grave Dutch brokers, whose blood had long ceased to riot, who thought that the great purposes of life were answered when the duties of the bureau were discharged; who, could they have compared, would have preferred the brick of the exchange, to the “verd’rous wall of Paradise,” who had never moved but with a measured funeral pace, were seen in large full-bottomed wigs, and with great silver buckles, mingling in the national dance, with the gay ethereal young Parisian conscripts, so that it might be said of the Dutchman,
“He rises on his toe: that spirit of his
In aspiration lifts him from the earth.”