Holland: The History of the Netherlands

by Thomas Colley Grattan

The annexation of Holland to the French empire was immediately pronounced by Napoleon. Two-thirds of the national debt were abolished, the conscription law was introduced, and the Berlin and Milan decrees against the introduction of British manufactures were rigidly enforced. The nature of the evils inflicted on the Dutch people by this annexation and its consequences demand a somewhat minute examination. Previous to it all that part of the territory of the former United Provinces had been ceded to France. The kingdom of Holland consisted of the departments of the Zuyder Zee, the mouths of the Maese, the Upper Yssel, the mouths of the Yssel, Friesland, and the Western and Eastern Ems; and the population of the whole did not exceed one million eight hundred thousand souls. When Louis abdicated his throne, he left a military and naval force of eighteen thousand men, who were immediately taken into the service of France; and in three years and a half after that event this number was increased to fifty thousand, by the operation of the French naval and military code: thus about a thirty-sixth part of the whole population was employed in arms. The forces included in the maritime conscription were wholly employed in the navy. The national guards were on constant duty in the garrisons or naval establishments. The cohorts were by law only liable to serve in the interior of the French empire—that is to say, from Hamburg to Rome; but after the Russian campaign, this limitation was disregarded, and they formed a part of Napoleon's army at the battle of Bautzen.

The conscription laws now began to be executed with the greatest rigor; and though the strictest justice and impartiality were observed in the ballot and other details of this most oppressive measure, yet it has been calculated that, on an average, nearly one-half of the male population of the age of twenty years was annually taken off. The conscripts were told that their service was not to extend beyond the term of five years; but as few instances occurred of a French soldier being discharged without his being declared unfit for service, it was always considered in Holland that the service of a conscript was tantamount to an obligation during life. Besides, the regulations respecting the conscription were annually changed, by which means the code became each year more intricate and confused; and as the explanation of any doubt rested with the functionaries, to whom the execution of the law was confided, there was little chance of their constructions mitigating its severity.

But the conscription, however galling, was general in its operation. Not so the formation of the emperor's guard of honor. The members of this patrician troop were chosen from the most noble and opulent families, particularly those who were deemed inimical to the French connection. The selection depended altogether on the prefect, who was sure to name those most obnoxious to his political or personal dislike, without regard to their rank or occupation, or even the state of their health. No exemption was admitted—not even to those who from mental or bodily infirmity, or other cause, had been declared unfit for general military duty. The victims were forced to the mockery of volunteering their services; obliged to provide themselves with horses, arms, and accoutrements; and when arrived at the depot appointed for their assembling, considered probably but as hostages for the fidelity of their relatives.

The various taxes were laid on and levied in the most oppressive manner; those on land usually amounting to twenty-five, and those on houses to thirty per cent of the clear annual rent. Other direct taxes were levied on persons and movable property, and all were regulated on a scale of almost intolerable severity. The whole sum annually obtained from Holland by these means amounted to about thirty millions of florins (or three million pounds sterling), being at the rate of about one pound thirteen shillings four pence from every soul inhabiting the country.

The operation of what was called the continental system created an excess of misery in Holland, only to be understood by those who witnessed its lamentable results. In other countries, Belgium for instance, where great manufactories existed, the loss of maritime communication was compensated by the exclusion of English goods. In states possessed of large and fertile territories, the population which could no longer be employed in commerce might be occupied in agricultural pursuits. But in Holland, whose manufactures were inconsiderable, and whose territory is insufficient to support its inhabitants, the destruction of trade threw innumerable individuals wholly out of employment, and produced a graduated scale of poverty in all ranks. A considerable part of the population had been employed in various branches of the traffic carried on by means of the many canals which conveyed merchandise from the seaports into the interior, and to the different continental markets. When the communication with England was cut off, principals and subordinates were involved in a common ruin.

In France, the effect of the continental system was somewhat alleviated by the license trade, the exportation of various productions forced on the rest of continental Europe, and the encouragement given to home manufactures. But all this was reversed in Holland: the few licenses granted to the Dutch were clogged with duties so exorbitant as to make them useless; the duties on one ship which entered the Maese, loaded with sugar and coffee, amounting to about fifty thousand pounds sterling. At the same time every means was used to crush the remnant of Dutch commerce and sacrifice the country to France. The Dutch troops were clothed and armed from French manufactories; the frontiers were opened to the introduction of French commodities duty free; and the Dutch manufacturer undersold in his own market.

The population of Amsterdam was reduced from two hundred and twenty thousand souls to one hundred and ninety thousand, of which a fourth part derived their whole subsistence from charitable institutions, while another fourth part received partial succor from the same sources. At Haarlem, where the population had been chiefly employed in bleaching and preparing linen made in Brabant, whole streets were levelled with the ground, and more than five hundred houses destroyed. At The Hague, at Delft, and in other towns, many inhabitants had been induced to pull down their houses, from inability to keep them in repair or pay the taxes. The preservation of the dikes, requiring an annual expense of six hundred thousand pounds sterling, was everywhere neglected. The sea inundated the country, and threatened to resume its ancient dominion. No object of ambition, no source of professional wealth or distinction, remained to which a Hollander could aspire. None could voluntarily enter the army or navy, to fight for the worst enemy of Holland. The clergy were not provided with a decent competency. The ancient laws of the country, so dear to its pride and its prejudices, were replaced by the Code Napoleon; so that old practitioners had to recommence their studies, and young men were disgusted with the drudgery of learning a system which was universally pronounced unfit for a commercial country.

Independent of this mass of positive ill, it must be borne in mind that in Holland trade was not merely a means of gaining wealth, but a passion long and deeply grafted on the national mind: so that the Dutch felt every aggravation of calamity, considering themselves degraded and sacrificed by a power which had robbed them of all which attaches a people to their native land; and, for an accumulated list of evils, only offered them the empty glory of appertaining to the country which gave the law to all the nations of Europe, with the sole exception of England.

Those who have considered the events noted in this history for the last two hundred years, and followed the fluctuations of public opinion depending on prosperity or misfortune, will have anticipated that, in the present calamitous state of the country, all eyes were turned toward the family whose memory was revived by every pang of slavery, and associated with every throb for freedom. The presence of the Prince of Orange, William IV., who had, on the death of his father, succeeded to the title, though he had lost the revenues of his ancient house, and the re-establishment of the connection with England, were now the general desire. Some of the principal partisans of the House of Nassau were for some time in correspondence with his most serene highness. The leaders of the various parties into which the country was divided became by degrees more closely united. Approaches toward a better understanding were reciprocally made; and they ended in a general anxiety for the expulsion of the French, with the establishment of a free constitution, and a cordial desire that the Prince of Orange should be at its head. It may be safely affirmed, that, at the close of the year 1813, these were the unanimous wishes of the Dutch nation.

Napoleon, lost in the labyrinths of his exorbitant ambition, afforded at length a chance of redress to the nations he had enslaved. Elevated so suddenly and so high, he seemed suspended between two influences, and unfit for either. He might, in a moral view, be said to have breathed badly, in a station which was beyond the atmosphere of his natural world, without being out of its attraction; and having reached the pinnacle, he soon lost his balance and fell. Driven from Russia by the junction of human with elemental force, in 1812, he made some grand efforts in the following year to recover from his irremediable reverses. The battles of Bautzen and Lutzen were the expiring efforts of his greatness. That of Leipzig put a fatal negative upon the hopes that sprang from the two former; and the obstinate ambition, which at this epoch made him refuse the most liberal offers of the allies, was justly punished by humiliation and defeat. Almost all the powers of Europe now leagued against him; and France itself being worn out by his wasteful expenditure of men and money, he had no longer a chance in resistance. The empire was attacked at all points. The French troops in Holland were drawn off to reinforce the armies in distant directions; and the whole military force in that country scarcely exceeded ten thousand men. The advance of the combined armies toward the frontiers became generally known: parties of Cossacks had entered the north of Holland in November, and were scouring the country beyond the Yssel. The moment for action on the part of the Dutch confederate patriots had now arrived; and it was not lost or neglected.