"The earnestness with which Sir Joseph Yorke insisted, by a second memorial, upon the article of the punishment, cannot therefore but appear very strange to their High Mightinesses, and their surprise increased still more when three days afterwards, this Ambassador declared, verbally, to the President of their High Mightinesses, that if he did not receive that day an answer entirely satisfactory to his memorial, he should be obliged to inform his Court of it by an express; their High Mightinesses, informed of this declaration, penetrated the importance of it, as manifesting visibly the measure already resolved in the Council of the King; and although the established customs admit not of deliberations upon verbal declarations of foreign Ministers, they judged it nevertheless proper to depart from them on this occasion, and to order their Secretary to wait on Sir Joseph Yorke, and give him to understand that his memorial had been taken ad referendum by the Deputies of the respective Provinces conformably to received usages, and to the constitution of the government; adding, what appears to have been omitted with design in the manifesto, that they would endeavor to complete an answer to his memorial as soon as possible, and as soon as the constitution of the government would permit. Accordingly, a few days after, the Deputies of Holland notified to the assembly of their High Mightinesses, that the States of their Province had unanimously resolved to require the advice of their Court of Justice, on the subject of demand of punishment, charging the said Court to give their opinion the soonest possible, laying aside all other affairs. Their High Mightinesses did not fail to transmit forthwith this resolution to Sir Joseph Yorke; but what was their surprise and their astonishment, when they learned that this Ambassador, after having reviewed his instructions, had addressed a billet to the Secretary, by which, in accusing this resolution with being evasive, he refused to transmit it to his Court; which obliged their High Mightinesses to send the said resolution to the Count de Welderen, their Minister at London, with orders to present it as soon as possible to the Ministry of his Britannic Majesty; but the refusal of this Ministry threw an obstacle in the way of the execution of these orders.
"After this explanation of all the circumstances of this affair, the impartial public will be in a condition to set a just value upon the principal motive, or rather pretext which his Britannic Majesty has used to let loose the reins of his designs against the Republic. The affair reduces itself to this. His Majesty was informed of a negotiation which should have taken place in the year 1778, between a member of the government of one of the Provinces and a representative of the American Congress, which negotiation would have had for its object to project a treaty of commerce, to be concluded between the Republic and the said Colonies, casu quo, viz. in case the independence of these Colonies should have been acknowledged by the Crown of England; this negotiation, although conditional, and annexed to a condition, which depended upon an act to be antecedently performed by his Majesty himself; this negotiation, which without this act, or this anterior declaration, could not produce the smallest effect, was taken in so ill a part by his Majesty, and appeared to excite his discontent in such a degree, that he thought fit to require of the State a disavowal and a public disapprobation, as well as a complete punishment and satisfaction. It was forthwith, and without the least delay, that their High Mightinesses granted the first part of the requisition, but the punishment demanded was not in their power, and they could not agree to it, without flying in the face of the fundamental constitution of the State. The States of the Province of Holland were the only tribunal to which it belonged to take legal cognizance, and to provide for the case by the ordinary and regular ways.
"This Sovereign, constantly attached to the maxims, which obliged it to respect the authority of the laws, and fully convinced that the maintenance of the department of justice in all the integrity and impartiality which are inseparable from it, ought to form one of the firmest supports of the supreme Power; this Sovereign, constrained by everything which is most sacred to defend, and to protect the rights and the privileges of its subjects, could not forget itself to such a degree as to subscribe to the will of his Britannic Majesty, by giving a blow to these rights and privileges, and by overleaping the bounds prescribed by the fundamental laws of the government. These laws required the intervention of the judiciary department, and this was accordingly the means which the said States resolved to employ, by requiring upon this object the advice of the Court of Justice established in their Province. It is by following this course that they have displayed before the eyes of his Britannic Majesty, of the English nation, and of all Europe, the unalterable principles of justice and equity, which characterise the Batavian Constitution, and which in a part so important of the public administration as is that which regards the exercise of the judiciary power, ought forever to serve as a buckler and a rampart against everything which could hurt the safety and the independence of a free nation; it was also by this means, and by following this course, that very far from shutting the road of justice, or evading the demand of punishment, they have on the contrary, left a free course to the way of regular proceeding, and conformable to the constitutional principles of the Republic; and it is finally by the same means, that by taking away from the Court of London all pretence of being able to complain of a denial of justice, they have prevented even to the smallest shadow or appearance of reason, which could authorise this Court to use reprisals to which, nevertheless, it has made no scruple to recur in a manner equally odious and unjust.
"But while the State took measures so just and so proper to remove all subject of complaint, the measure which was the epoch of the commencement of the rupture had already been resolved and concluded in the Council of the King. This Council had resolved to try all sorts of means to traverse and hinder, if it had been possible, the accession of the Republic to the convention of the Powers of the North, and the event has clearly demonstrated, that it is in hatred and resentment of this convention that the said Court has suffered itself to be drawn into the part, which it has been pleased to take against the Republic. For these causes, and since that after the repeated outrages and immense losses, which the subjects of the Republic must have sustained on the part of his Majesty, the King of Great Britain, their High Mightinesses find themselves moreover provoked and attacked by his said Majesty, and forced to employ the means which they have in hand, to defend and avenge the precious rights of their liberty and independence, they assure themselves with the firmest confidence, that the God of armies, the God of their fathers, who by the visible direction of his Providence sustained and delivered their Republic in the midst of the greatest dangers, will bless the means, which they have resolved to put in operation for their lawful defence, in crowning the justice of their arms, by the succors always triumphant of his Almighty protection, while that their High Mightinesses will desire with ardor the moment, when they shall see their neighbor and their ally, now their enemy, brought back to moderate and equitable sentiments; and at this epoch, their High Mightinesses will seize with earnestness all events, which, compatible with the honor and independence of a free State, may tend to reconcile them with their ancient friend and ally.
"Thus done and resolved at the Assembly of their High Mightinesses, the Lords the States-General of the United Provinces of the Low Countries, at the Hague, the 12th of March, 1781."
It is remarkable, that their High Mightinesses, after so many delays, have chosen for the publication of this Manifesto, a time when the mediation of the Empress is depending. This mediation appears in a memorial, presented the 1st of March to the States-General, in these words.
"High and Mighty Lords.—As soon as her Majesty, the Empress, was informed of the sudden departure from the Hague of the Ambassador of his Britannic Majesty to your High Mightinesses, guided by the sentiments of friendship and benevolence, which she professes towards the two powers, she did not wait for further explanations, concerning the consequences, which might be produced by a procedure so alarming for their reciprocal tranquillity and well-being, to make by her Minister at the Court of London representations the most pressing, to the end to divert it, if it were possible, from coming to violent measures, and to induce it rather to prefer those of softness and conciliation, offering herself to co-operate in everything which might depend upon her. Although her Majesty has not yet had the time to receive the answer of the Court of London, she has, nevertheless, reason to presume, that her insinuations there will be received with pleasure.
In this confidence, the Empress does not hesitate to give a new proof of her salutary intentions in favor of the reunion of two States, for whom she has an equal affection, and whom she has seen for so long a time live together in an intelligence the most perfect, and the most natural to their respective interests, by proposing to them formally her good offices and her mediation, to interrupt and put an entire end to the discord and the war, which has broken out between them. While M. Simolin, the Minister of the Empress at the Court of London, acquits himself of the orders, which she has given him concerning this object, the undersigned has the honor to fulfil the same task, on his part, towards your High Mightinesses, and to assure you of the zeal and earnestness with which he should desire to labor at the precious work of the re-establishment of the repose and the tranquillity of your State. The disinterestedness, the impartiality, and the views of general beneficence, which have instamped their seal upon all the actions of her Imperial Majesty, preside equally in this. The wisdom and the prudence of your High Mightinesses will know how to acknowledge in her these august characters, and will dictate the answer, which the subscriber will have to transmit to her, concerning the execution of his orders.
"The Hague, March 1st, 1781.
THE PRINCE DE GALLITZIN."