Holland: The History of the Netherlands

by Thomas Colley Grattan

A people inured to revolutions for upward of two centuries, filled with proud recollections, and urged on by well-digested hopes, were the most likely to understand the best period and the surest means for success. An attempt that might have appeared to other nations rash was proved to be wise, both by the reasonings of its authors and its own results. The intolerable tyranny of France had made the population not only ripe, but eager for revolt. This disposition was acted on by a few enterprising men, at once partisans of the House of Orange and patriots in the truest sense of the word. It would be unjust to omit the mention of some of their names in even this sketch of the events which sprang from their courage and sagacity. Count Styrum, Messieurs Repelaer d'Jonge, Van Hogendorp, Vander Duyn van Maasdam, and Changuion, were the chiefs of the intrepid junta which planned and executed the bold measures of enfranchisement, and drew up the outlines of the constitution which was afterward enlarged and ratified. Their first movements at The Hague were totally unsupported by foreign aid. Their early checks from the exasperated French and their overcautious countrymen would have deterred most men embarked in so perilous a venture; but they never swerved nor shrank back. At the head of a force, which courtesy and policy called an army, of three hundred national guards badly armed, fifty citizens carrying fowling-pieces, fifty soldiers of the old Dutch guard, four hundred auxiliary citizens armed with pikes, and a cavalry force of twenty young men, the confederates oddly proclaimed the Prince of Orange, on the 17th of November, 1813, in their open village of The Hague, and in the teeth of a French force of full ten thousand men, occupying every fortress in the country.

While a few gentlemen thus boldly came forward, at their own risk, with no funds but their private fortunes, and only aided by an unarmed populace, to declare war against the French emperor, they did not even know the residence of the exiled prince in whose cause they were now so completely compromised. The other towns of Holland were in a state of the greatest incertitude: Rotterdam had not moved; and the intentions of Admiral Kickert, who commanded there, were (mistakenly) supposed to be decidedly hostile to the national cause. Amsterdam had, on the preceding day, been the scene of a popular commotion, which, however, bore no decided character; the rioters having been fired on by the national guard, no leader coming forward, and the proclamation of the magistrates cautiously abstaining from any allusion to the Prince of Orange. A brave officer, Captain Falck, had made use of many strong but inefficient arguments to prevail on the timid corporation to declare for the prince; the presence of a French garrison of sixty men seeming sufficient to preserve their patriotism from any violent excess.

The subsequent events at The Hague furnish an inspiring lesson for all people who would learn that to be free they must be resolute and daring. The only hope of the confederates was from the British government, and the combined armies then acting in the north of Europe. But many days were to be lingered through before troops could be embarked, and make their way from England in the teeth of the easterly winds then prevailing; while a few Cossacks, hovering on the confines of Holland, gave the only evidence of the proximity of the allied forces.

In this crisis, it was most fortunate that the French prefect at The Hague, M. de Stassart, had stolen away on the earliest alarm; and the French garrison of four hundred chasseurs, aided by one hundred well-armed custom-house officers, under the command of General Bouvier des Eclats, caught the contagious fears of the civil functionary. This force had retired to the old palace—a building in the centre of the town, the depot of all the arms and ammunition then at The Hague, and, from its position, capable of some defence. But the general and his garrison soon felt a complete panic from the bold attitude of Count Styrum, who made the most of his little means, and kept up, during the night, a prodigious clatter by his twenty horsemen; sentinels challenging, amid incessant singing and shouting, cries of "Oranje boven!" "Vivat Oranje!" and clamorous patrols of the excited citizens. At an early hour on the 18th, the French general demanded terms, and obtained permission to retire on Gorcum, his garrison being escorted as far as the village of Ryswyk by the twenty cavaliers who composed the whole mounted force of the patriots.

Unceasing efforts were now made to remedy the want of arms and men. A quantity of pikes were rudely made and distributed to the volunteers who crowded in; and numerous fishing-boats were despatched in different directions to inform the British cruisers of the passing events. An individual named Pronck, an inhabitant of Schævening, a village of the coast, rendered great services in this way, from his influence among the sailors and fishermen in the neighborhood.

The confederates spared no exertion to increase the confidence of the people under many contradictory and disheartening contingencies. An officer who had been despatched for advice and information to Baron Bentinck, at Zwolle, who was in communication with the allies, returned with the discouraging news that General Bulow had orders not to pass the Yssel, the allies having decided not to advance into Holland beyond the line of that river. A meeting of the ancient regents of The Hague was convoked by the proclamation of the confederates, and took place at the house of Mr. Van Hogendorp, the ancient residence of the De Witts. The wary magistrates absolutely refused all co-operation in the daring measures of the confederates, who had now the whole responsibility on their heads, with little to cheer them on in their perilous career but their own resolute hearts and the recollection of those days when their ancestors, with odds as fearfully against them, rose up and shivered to atoms the yoke of their oppressors.

Some days of intense anxiety now elapsed; and various incidents occurred to keep up the general excitement. Reinforcements came gradually in; no hostile measure was resorted to by the French troops; yet the want of success, as rapid as was proportioned to the first movements of the revolution, threw a gloom over all. Amsterdam and Rotterdam still held back; but the nomination of Messrs. Van Hogendorp and Vander Duyn van Maasdam to be heads of the government, until the arrival of the Prince of Orange, and a formal abjuration of the emperor Napoleon, inspired new vigor into the public mind. Two nominal armies were formed, and two generals appointed to the command; and it is impossible to resist a smile of mingled amusement and admiration on reading the exact statement of the forces, so pompously and so effectively announced as forming the armies of Utrecht and Gorcum.

The first of these, commanded by Major-General D'Jonge, consisted of three hundred infantry, thirty-two volunteer cavalry, with two eight-pounders. The latter, under the orders of Major-General Sweertz van Landas, was composed of two hundred and fifty of The Hague Orange Guard, thirty Prussian deserters from the French garrison, three hundred volunteers, forty cavalry, with two eight-pounders.

The "army of Gorcum" marched on the 22d on Rotterdam: its arrival was joyfully hailed by the people, who contributed three hundred volunteers to swell its ranks. The "army of Utrecht" advanced on Leyden, and raised the spirits of the people by the display of even so small a force. But still the contrary winds kept back all appearance of succor from England, and the enemy was known to meditate a general attack on the patriot lines from Amsterdam to Dordrecht. The bad state of the roads still retarded the approach of the far-distant armies of the allies; alarms, true and false, were spread on all hands—when the appearance of three hundred Cossacks, detached from the Russian armies beyond the Yssel, prevailed over the hesitation of Amsterdam and the other towns, and they at length declared for the Prince of Orange.

But this somewhat tardy determination seemed to be the signal for various petty events, which at an epoch like that were magnified into transactions of the most fatal import. A reinforcement of one thousand five hundred French troops reached Gorcum from Antwerp: a detachment of twenty-five Dutch, with a piece of cannon, were surprised at one of the outposts of Woerden, which had been previously evacuated by the French, and the recapture of the town was accompanied by some excesses. The numbers and the cruelties of the enemy were greatly exaggerated. Consternation began to spread all over the country. The French, who seemed to have recovered from their panic, had resumed on all sides offensive operations. The garrison of Gorcum made a sortie, repulsed the force under General Van Landas, entered the town of Dordrecht, and levied contributions; but the inhabitants soon expelled them, and the army was enabled to resume its position.