On the 21st of this month, the Field Maréchal, Duke Louis, of Brunswick, presented to the States-General the following paper.
"High and Mighty Lords,
"It is not without the greatest reluctance, that I see myself forced to interrupt the important deliberations of your High Mightinesses, and to have recourse to you in an affair, which indeed regards me personally, but the simple explanation of which, I assure myself, will prove, that if I should neglect this step, I should be essentially wanting to the dignity of character, with which your High Mightinesses have clothed me.
"After having passed in 1750 into the service of the State, it pleased your High Mightinesses, by your resolution of the 13th of November of the same year, to create me Field Maréchal of your troops. When, afterwards, the arrangements for the tuition of the Stadtholder in his minority were resolved on, by express resolutions of all the High Confederates, and it was resolved, that his Highness should be represented in the administration of his military employments, your High Mightinesses then condescended, by honoring me with their distinguished confidence, to confer upon me, by your resolution of the 13th of January, 1759, the title of the representative of the Prince Stadtholder, as Captain-General during the time of his minority.
"I shall say nothing of the resolutions, which your High Mightinesses and the respective Provinces took on the 8th of March, 1766, the day of the majority of the Prince, and in the sequel, under different dates, relative to the manner in which I had answered to the confidence, which you had condescended to put in me. These resolutions are too flattering to be recited here; they are, however, sure pledges, that at that time, at least, I had the good fortune to see my conduct and my services rendered to the State, approved by the high government. In fine, your High Mightinesses continued to honor me with your confidence, even after the time of the minority of the Stadtholder. You took on the same 8th of March, 1766, the resolution to cause to be solicited by your Envoy Extraordinary at the Court of Vienna, the consent of her Imperial and Royal Majesty, in whose service I was also engaged as Field Maréchal, to continue me still in the same quality in the service of your High Mightinesses. The pleasure of her Majesty being obtained, I did not refuse this honor, but continued vested with the character of Field Maréchal of the troops of the State, in the service of your High Mightinesses.
"Having thus filled for more than thirty years, under the eyes of their High Mightinesses, and in a manner which is sufficiently known to you, the employments which you had confided to me, could I have expected that they would one day render my person the object of the public hatred to such a degree, that I could be exposed to the step which they have taken upon my subject; a step the most dishonorable to the character, with which your High Mightinesses have condescended to invest me, and which puts me in the absolute necessity of addressing myself this day to you.
"In effect, High and Mighty Lords, after having seen myself in public, the object of accusations and calumnies the most atrocious, (but which I have always despised as such, and of which I shall never take notice, while no one presents himself to support them) after that they had excited against me a general cry, as if my person could be no longer endured, it was necessary for me still further to suffer, that the gentlemen, the Deputies of the city of Amsterdam, and namely the two reigning Burgomasters, Messieurs Temminck and Rendorp, accompanied with the Pensionary Vischer, should have addressed themselves to my Lord, the Prince of Orange, and in presence of the Counsellor Pensionary of Holland, should have read to him a certain memorial, in the name and by the order of their constituents, who are therein throughout introduced as speaking in the name of the Regency of Amsterdam, and in which I receive an affront the most sensible for an upright heart. It is true, that the Deputies whom I have just named, took back with them this memorial; but, since, changing their plan, they have thought fit to transmit it, on the 14th of the month, by the Burgomaster Rendorp, not indeed in the name of the Regency of Amsterdam, but in that of the gentlemen the Burgomasters to the Counsellor Pensionary, praying him to transmit it to the Prince, to whom they left the liberty to make such use of it as should seem to him convenient.
"Informed in this way, and by the communication which his Highness made to me of it, of the contents of this memorial, I there found so long a concatenation of expressions and reasonings, each more insulting than the other, against my person, which I should be afraid to abuse the attention of your High Mightinesses by inserting them here; lest, however, I should represent them out of their order, and the chain which connects them together, your High Mightinesses will pardon me, I hope, if I transcribe from the memorial, the periods which relate to me, and by which I am attacked.
"After having made several reflections, which in nowise concern me, and which I ought, consequently, to leave to be answered by those who are attacked by them, but which tend to justify the proposition, which the gentlemen, the Deputies of the city of Amsterdam, made the 18th of May last, in the Assembly of the States of Holland in particular, to join to his Highness a privy council or committee, the gentlemen, the Burgomasters, continue to address themselves to the Prince literally in these terms."
[Here follows the substance of the representations of the Burgomasters, contained in my letter to Congress, of the 26th of June, 1781.]