CHAPTER XVIII
TO THE TREATY OF MUNSTER
A.D. 1625—1648
Frederick Henry succeeded to almost all his brother's titles and employments, and found his new dignities clogged with an accumulation of difficulties sufficient to appall the most determined spirit. Everything seemed to justify alarm and despondency. If the affairs of the republic in India wore an aspect of prosperity, those in Europe presented a picture of past disaster and approaching peril. Disunion and discontent, an almost insupportable weight of taxation, and the disputes of which it was the fruitful source, formed the subjects of internal ill. Abroad was to be seen navigation harassed and trammelled by the pirates of Dunkirk; and the almost defenceless frontiers of the republic exposed to the irruptions of the enemy. The king of Denmark, who endeavored to make head against the imperialist and Spanish forces, was beaten by Tilly, and made to tremble for the safety of his own States. England did nothing toward the common cause of Protestantism, in consequence of the weakness of the monarch; and civil dissensions for a while disabled France from resuming the system of Henry IV. for humbling the House of Austria.
Frederick Henry was at this period in his forty-second year. His military reputation was well established; he soon proved his political talents. He commenced his career by a total change in the tone of government on the subject of sectarian differences. He exercised several acts of clemency in favor of the imprisoned and exiled Arminians, at the same time that he upheld the dominant religion. By these measures he conciliated all parties; and by degrees the fierce spirit of intolerance became subdued. The foreign relations of the United Provinces now presented the anomalous policy of a fleet furnished by the French king, manned by rigid Calvinists, and commanded by a grandson of Admiral Coligny, for the purpose of combating the remainder of the French Huguenots, whom they considered as brothers in religion, though political foes; and during the joint expedition which was undertaken by the allied French and Dutch troops against Rochelle, the stronghold of Protestantism, the preachers of Holland put up prayers for the protection of those whom their army was marching to destroy. The states-general, ashamed of this unpopular union, recalled their fleet, after some severe fighting with that of the Huguenots. Cardinal Richelieu and the king of France were for a time furious in their displeasure; but interests of state overpowered individual resentments, and no rupture took place.
Charles I. had now succeeded his father on the English throne. He renewed the treaty with the republic, which furnished him with twenty ships to assist his own formidable fleet in his war against Spain. Frederick Henry had, soon after his succession to the chief command, commenced an active course of martial operations, and was successful in almost all his enterprises. He took Groll and several other towns; and it was hoped that his successes would have been pushed forward upon a wider field of action against the imperial arms; but the States prudently resolved to act on the defensive by land, choosing the sea for the theatre of their more active operations. All the hopes of a powerful confederation against the emperor and the king of Spain seemed frustrated by the war which now broke out between France and England. The states-general contrived by great prudence to maintain a strict neutrality in this quarrel. They even succeeded in mediating a peace between the rival powers, which was concluded the following year; and in the meantime they obtained a more astonishing and important series of triumphs against the Spanish fleets than had yet been witnessed in naval conflicts.
The West India Company had confided the command of their fleet to Peter Hein, a most intrepid and intelligent sailor, who proved his own merits, and the sagacity of his employers on many occasions, two of them of an extraordinary nature. In 1627, he defeated a fleet of twenty-six vessels, with a much inferior force. In the following year, he had the still more brilliant good fortune, near Havana, in the island of Cuba, in an engagement with the great Spanish armament, called the Money Fleet, to indicate the immense wealth which it contained. The booty was safely carried to Amsterdam, and the whole of the treasure, in money, precious stones, indigo, etc., was estimated at the value of twelve million florins. This was indeed a victory worth gaining, won almost without bloodshed, and raising the republic far above the manifold difficulties by which it had been embarrassed. Hein perished in the following year, in a combat with some of the pirates of Dunkirk—those terrible freebooters whose name was a watchword of terror during the whole continuance of the war.
The year 1629 brought three formidable armies at once to the frontiers of the republic, and caused a general dismay all through the United Provinces; but the immense treasures taken from the Spaniards enabled them to make preparations suitable to the danger; and Frederick Henry, supported by his cousin William of Nassau, his natural brother Justin, and other brave and experienced officers, defeated every effort of the enemy. He took many towns in rapid succession; and finally forced the Spaniards to abandon all notion of invading the territories of the republic. Deprived of the powerful talents of Spinola, who was called to command the Spanish troops in Italy, the armies of the archduchess, under the count of Berg, were not able to cope with the genius of the Prince of Orange. The consequence was the renewal of negotiations for a second truce. But these were received on the part of the republic with a burst of opposition. All parties seemed decided on that point; and every interest, however opposed on minor questions, combined to give a positive negative on this.
The gratitude of the country for the services of Frederick Henry induced the provinces of which he was stadtholder to grant the reversion in this title to his son, a child of three years old; and this dignity had every chance of becoming as absolute, as it was now pronounced almost hereditary, by the means of an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men devoted to their chief. However, few military occurrences took place, the sea being still chosen as the element best suited to the present enterprises of the republic. In the widely-distant settlements of Brazil and Batavia, the Dutch were equally successful; and the East and West India companies acquired eminent power and increasing solidity.
The year 1631 was signalized by an expedition into Flanders, consisting of eighteen thousand men, intended against Dunkirk, but hastily abandoned, in spite of every probability of success, by the commissioners of the states-general, who accompanied the army, and thwarted all the ardor and vigor of the Prince of Orange. But another great naval victory in the narrow seas of Zealand recompensed the disappointments of this inglorious affair.
The splendid victories of Augustus Adolphus against the imperial arms in Germany changed the whole face of European affairs. Protestantism began once more to raise its head; and the important conquests by Frederick Henry of almost all the strong places on the Meuse, including Maestricht, the strongest of all, gave the United Provinces their ample share in the glories of the war. The death of the archduchess Isabella, which took place at Brussels in the year 1633, added considerably to the difficulties of Spain in the Belgian provinces. The defection of the count of Berg, the chief general of their armies, who was actuated by resentment on the appointment of the marquis of St. Croix over his head, threw everything into confusion, in exposing a widespread confederacy among the nobility of these provinces to erect themselves into an independent republic, strengthened by a perpetual alliance with the United Provinces against the power of Spain. But the plot failed, chiefly, it is said, by the imprudence of the king of England, who let the secret slip, from some motives vaguely hinted at, but never sufficiently explained. After the death of Isabella, the prince of Brabancon was arrested. The prince of Epinoi and the duke of Burnonville made their escape; and the duke of Arschot, who was arrested in Spain, was soon liberated, in consideration of some discoveries into the nature of the plot. An armistice, published in 1634, threw this whole affair into complete oblivion.
The king of Spain appointed his brother Ferdinand, a cardinal and archbishop of Toledo, to the dignity of governor-general of the Netherlands. He repaired to Germany at the head of seventeen thousand men, and bore his share in the victory of Nordlingen; after which he hastened to the Netherlands, and made his entry into Brussels in 1634. Richelieu had hitherto only combated the house of Austria in these countries by negotiation and intrigue; but he now entered warmly into the proposals made by Holland for a treaty offensive and defensive between Louis XIII. and the republic. By a treaty soon after concluded (February 8, 1635) the king of France engaged to invade the Belgian provinces with an army of thirty thousand men, in concert with a Dutch force of equal number. It was agreed that if Belgium would consent to break from the Spanish yoke it was to be erected into a free state; if, on the contrary, it would not co-operate for its own freedom, France and Holland were to dismember, and to divide it equally.
The plan of these combined measures was soon acted on. The French army took the field under the command of the marshals De Chatillon and De Breeze; and defeated the Spaniards in a bloody battle, near Avein, in the province of Luxemburg, on the 20th of May, 1635, with the loss of four thousand men. The victors soon made a junction with the Prince of Orange; and the towns of Tirlemont, St. Trond, and some others, were quickly reduced. The former of these places was taken by assault, and pillaged with circumstances of cruelty that recall the horrors of the early transactions of the war. The Prince of Orange was forced to punish severely the authors of these offences. The consequences of this event were highly injurious to the allies. A spirit of fierce resistance was excited throughout the invaded provinces. Louvain set the first example. The citizens and students took arms for its defence; and the combined forces of France and Holland were repulsed, and forced by want of supplies to abandon the siege, and rapidly retreat. The prince-cardinal, as Ferdinand was called, took advantage of this reverse to press the retiring French; recovered several towns; and gained all the advantages as well as glory of the campaign. The remains of the French army, reduced by continual combats, and still more by sickness, finally embarked at Rotterdam, to return to France in the ensuing spring, a sad contrast to its brilliant appearance at the commencement of the campaign.
The military events for several ensuing years present nothing of sufficient interest to induce us to record them in detail. A perpetual succession of sieges and skirmishes afford a monotonous picture of isolated courage and skill; but we see none of those great conflicts which bring out the genius of opposing generals, and show war in its grand results, as the decisive means of enslaving or emancipating mankind. The prince-cardinal, one of the many who on this bloody theatre displayed consummate military talents, incessantly employed himself in incursions into the bordering provinces of France, ravaged Picardy, and filled Paris with fear and trembling. He, however, reaped no new laurels when he came into contact with Frederick Henry, who, on almost every occasion, particularly that of the siege of Breda, in 1637, carried his object in spite of all opposition. The triumphs of war were balanced; but Spain and the Belgian provinces, so long upheld by the talent of the governor-general, were gradually become exhausted. The revolution in Portugal, and the succession of the duke of Braganza, under the title of John IV., to the throne of his ancestors, struck a fatal blow to the power of Spain. A strict alliance was concluded between the new monarch of France and Holland; and hostilities against the common enemy were on all sides vigorously continued.
The successes of the republic at sea and in their distant enterprises were continual, and in some instances brilliant. Brazil was gradually falling into the power of the West India Company. The East India possessions were secure. The great victory of Van Tromp, known by the name of the battle of the Downs, from being fought off the coast of England, on the 21st of October, 1639, raised the naval reputation of Holland as high as it could well be carried. Fifty ships taken, burned, and sunk, were the proofs of their admiral's triumph; and the Spanish navy never recovered the loss. The victory was celebrated throughout Europe, and Van Tromp was the hero of the day. The king of England was, however, highly indignant at the hardihood with which the Dutch admiral broke through the etiquette of territorial respect, and destroyed his country's bitter foes under the very sanction of English neutrality. But the subjects of Charles I. did not partake their monarch's feelings. They had no sympathy with arbitrary and tyrannic government; and their joy at the misfortune of their old enemies the Spaniards gave a fair warning of the spirit which afterward proved so fatal to the infatuated king, who on this occasion would have protected and aided them.
In an unsuccessful enterprise in Flanders, Count Henry Casimir of Nassau was mortally wounded, adding another to the list of those of that illustrious family whose lives were lost in the service of their country. His brother, Count William Frederick, succeeded him in his office of stadtholder of Friesland; but the same dignity in the provinces of Groningen and Drent devolved on the Prince of Orange. The latter had conceived the desire of a royal alliance for his son William. Charles I. readily assented to the proposal of the states-general that this young prince should receive the hand of his daughter Mary. Embassies were exchanged; the conditions of the contract agreed on; but it was not till two years later that Van Tromp, with an escort of twenty ships, conducted the princess, then twelve years old, to the country of her future husband. The republic did not view with an eye quite favorable this advancing aggrandizement of the House of Orange. Frederick Henry had shortly before been dignified by the king of France, at the suggestion of Richelieu, with the title of "highness," instead of the inferior one of "excellency"; and the states-general, jealous of this distinction granted to their chief magistrate, adopted for themselves the sounding appellation of "high and mighty lords." The Prince of Orange, whatever might have been his private views of ambition, had however the prudence to silence all suspicion, by the mild and moderate use which he made of the power, which he might perhaps have wished to increase, but never attempted to abuse.
On the 9th of November, 1641, the prince-cardinal Ferdinand died at Brussels in his thirty-third year; another instance of those who were cut off, in the very vigor of manhood, from worldly dignities and the exercise of the painful and inauspicious duties of governor-general of the Netherlands. Don Francisco de Mello, a nobleman of highly reputed talents, was the next who obtained this onerous situation. He commenced his governorship by a succession of military operations, by which, like most of his predecessors, he is alone distinguished. Acts of civil administration are scarcely noticed by the historians of these men. Not one of them, with the exception of the archduke Albert, seems to have valued the internal interests of the government; and he alone, perhaps, because they were declared and secured as his own. De Mello, after taking some towns, and defeating the marshal De Guiche in the battle of Hannecourt, tarnished all his fame by the great faults which he committed in the famous battle of Rocroy. The duke of Enghien, then twenty-one years of age, and subsequently so celebrated as the great Condé, completely defeated De Mello, and nearly annihilated the Spanish and Walloon infantry. The military operations of the Dutch army were this year only remarkable by the gallant conduct of Prince William, son of the Prince of Orange, who, not yet seventeen years of age, defeated, near Hulst, under the eyes of his father, a Spanish detachment in a very warm skirmish.
Considerable changes were now insensibly operating in the policy of Europe. Cardinal Richelieu had finished his dazzling but tempestuous career of government, in which the hand of death arrested him on the 4th of December, 1642. Louis XIII. soon followed to the grave him who was rather his master than his minister. Anne of Austria was declared regent during the minority of her son, Louis XIV., then only five years of age; and Cardinal Mazarin succeeded to the station from which death alone had power to remove his predecessor.
The civil wars in England now broke out, and their terrible results seemed to promise to the republic the undisturbed sovereignty of the seas. The Prince of Orange received with great distinction the mother-in-law of his son, when she came to Holland under pretext of conducting her daughter; but her principal purpose was to obtain, by the sale of the crown jewels and the assistance of Frederick Henry, funds for the supply of her unfortunate husband's cause.
The prince and several private individuals contributed largely in money; and several experienced officers passed over to serve in the royalist army of England. The provincial states of Holland, however, sympathizing wholly with the parliament, remonstrated with the stadtholder; and the Dutch colonists encouraged the hostile efforts of their brethren, the Puritans of Scotland, by all the absurd exhortations of fanatic zeal. Boswell, the English resident in the name of the king, and Strickland, the ambassador from the parliament, kept up a constant succession of complaints and remonstrances on occasion of every incident which seemed to balance the conduct of the republic in the great question of English politics. Considerable differences existed: the province of Holland, and some others, leaned toward the parliament; the Prince of Orange favored the king; and the states-general endeavored to maintain a neutrality.
The struggle was still furiously maintained in Germany. Generals of the first order of military talent were continually appearing, and successively eclipsing each other by their brilliant actions. Gustavus Adolphus was killed in the midst of his glorious career, at the battle of Lutzen; the duke of Weimar succeeded to his command, and proved himself worthy of the place; Tilly and the celebrated Wallenstein were no longer on the scene. The emperor Ferdinand II. was dead, and his son Ferdinand III. saw his victorious enemies threaten, at last, the existence of the empire. Everything tended to make peace necessary to some of the contending powers, as it was at length desirable for all. Sweden and Denmark were engaged in a bloody and wasteful conflict. The United Provinces sent an embassy, in the month of June, 1644, to each of those powers; and by a vigorous demonstration of their resolution to assist Sweden, if Denmark proved refractory, a peace was signed the following year, which terminated the disputes of the rival nations.
Negotiations were now opened at Munster between the several belligerents. The republic was, however, the last to send its plenipotentiaries there; having signed anew treaty with France, by which they mutually stipulated to make no peace independent of each other. It behooved the republic, however, to contribute as much as possible toward the general object; for, among other strong motives to that line of conduct, the finances of Holland were in a state perfectly deplorable.
Every year brought the necessity of a new loan; and the public debt of the provinces now amounted to one hundred and fifty million florins, bearing interest at six and a quarter per cent. Considerable alarm was excited at the progress of the French army in the Belgian provinces; and escape from the tyranny of Spain seemed only to lead to the danger of submission to a nation too powerful and too close at hand not to be dangerous, either as a foe or an ally. These fears were increased by the knowledge that Cardinal Mazarin projected a marriage between Louis XIV. and the infanta of Spain, with the Belgian provinces, or Spanish Netherlands as they were now called, for her marriage portion. This project was confided to the Prince of Orange, under the seal of secrecy, and he was offered the marquisate of Antwerp as the price of his influence toward effecting the plan. The prince revealed the whole to the states-general. Great fermentation was excited; the stadtholder himself was blamed, and suspected of complicity with the designs of the cardinal. Frederick Henry was deeply hurt at this want of confidence, and the injurious publications which openly assailed his honor in a point where he felt himself entitled to praise instead of suspicion.
The French labored to remove the impression which this affair excited in the republic; but the states-general felt themselves justified by the intriguing policy of Mazarin in entering into a secret negotiation with the king of Spain, who offered very favorable conditions. The negotiations were considerably advanced by the marked disposition evinced by the Prince of Orange to hasten the establishment of peace. Yet, at this very period, and while anxiously wishing this great object, he could not resist the desire for another campaign; one more exploit, to signalize the epoch at which he finally placed his sword in the scabbard.
Frederick Henry was essentially a soldier, with all the spirit of his race; and this evidence of the ruling passion, while he touched the verge of the grave, is one of the most striking points of his character. He accordingly took the field; but, with a constitution broken by a lingering disease, he was little fitted to accomplish any feat worthy of his splendid reputation. He failed in an attempt on Venlo, and another on Antwerp, and retired to The Hague, where for some months he rapidly declined. On the 14th of March, 1647, he expired, in his sixty-third year; leaving behind him a character of unblemished integrity, prudence, toleration, and valor. He was not of that impetuous stamp which leads men to heroic deeds, and brings danger to the states whose liberty is compromised by their ambition. He was a striking contrast to his brother Maurice, and more resembled his father in many of those calmer qualities of the mind, which make men more beloved without lessening their claims to admiration. Frederick Henry had the honor of completing the glorious task which William began and Maurice followed up. He saw the oppression they had combated now humbled and overthrown; and he forms the third in a sequence of family renown, the most surprising and the least checkered afforded by the annals of Europe.
William II. succeeded his father in his dignities; and his ardent spirit longed to rival him in war. He turned his endeavors to thwart all the efforts for peace. But the interests of the nation and the dying wishes of Frederick Henry were of too powerful influence with the states, to be overcome by the martial yearnings of an inexperienced youth. The negotiations were pressed forward; and, despite the complaints, the murmurs, and the intrigues of France, the treaty of Munster was finally signed by the respective ambassadors of the United Provinces and Spain, on the 30th of January, 1648. This celebrated treaty contains seventy-nine articles. Three points were of main and vital importance to the republic: the first acknowledges an ample and entire recognition of the sovereignty of the states-general, and a renunciation forever of all claims on the part of Spain; the second confirms the rights of trade and navigation in the East and West Indies, with the possession of the various countries and stations then actually occupied by the contracting powers; the third guarantees a like possession of all the provinces and towns of the Netherlands, as they then stood in their respective occupation—a clause highly favorable to the republic, which had conquered several considerable places in Brabant and Flanders. The ratifications of the treaty were exchanged at Munster with great solemnity on the 15th of May following the signature; the peace was published in that town and in Osnaburg on the 19th, and in all the different states of the king of Spain and the United Provinces as soon as the joyous intelligence could reach such various and widely separated destinations. Thus after eighty years of unparalleled warfare, only interrupted by the truce of 1609, during which hostilities had not ceased in the Indies, the new republic rose from the horrors of civil war and foreign tyranny to its uncontested rank as a free and independent state among the most powerful nations of Europe. No country had ever done more for glory; and the result of its efforts was the irrevocable guarantee of civil and religious liberty, the great aim and end of civilization.
The king of France alone had reason to complain of this treaty: his resentment was strongly pronounced. But the United Provinces flung back the reproaches of his ambassador on Cardinal Mazarin; and the anger of the monarch was smothered by the policy of the minister.
The internal tranquillity of the republic was secured from all future alarm by the conclusion of the general peace of Westphalia, definitively signed on the 24th of October, 1648. This treaty was long considered not only as the fundamental law of the empire, but as the basis of the political system of Europe. As numbers of conflicting interests were reconciled, Germanic liberty secured, and a just equilibrium established between the Catholics and Protestants, France and Sweden obtained great advantages; and the various princes of the empire saw their possessions regulated and secured, at the same time that the powers of the emperor were strictly defined.
This great epoch in European history naturally marks the conclusion of another in that of the Netherlands; and this period of general repose allows a brief consideration of the progress of arts, sciences, and manners, during the half century just now completed.
The archdukes Albert and Isabella, during the whole course of their sovereignty, labored to remedy the abuses which had crowded the administration of justice. The Perpetual Edict, in 1611, regulated the form of judicial proceedings; and several provinces received new charters, by which the privileges of the people were placed on a footing in harmony with their wants. Anarchy, in short, gave place to regular government; and the archdukes, in swearing to maintain the celebrated pact known by the name of the Joyeuse Entree, did all in their power to satisfy their subjects, while securing their own authority. The piety of the archdukes gave an example to all classes. This, although degenerating in the vulgar to superstition and bigotry, formed a severe check, which allowed their rulers to restrain popular excesses, and enabled them in the internal quiet of their despotism to soften the people by the encouragement of the sciences and arts. Medicine, astronomy, and mathematics, made prodigious progress during this epoch. Several eminent men flourished in the Netherlands. But the glory of others, in countries presenting a wider theatre for their renown, in many instances eclipsed them; and the inventors of new methods and systems in anatomy, optics and music were almost forgotten in the splendid improvements of their followers.
In literature, Hugo de Groot, or Grotius (his Latinized name, by which he is better known), was the most brilliant star of his country or his age, as Erasmus was of that which preceded. He was at once eminent as jurist, poet, theologian, and historian. His erudition was immense; and he brought it to bear in his political capacity, as ambassador from Sweden to the court of France, when the violence of party and the injustice of power condemned him to perpetual imprisonment in his native land. The religious disputations in Holland had given a great impulse to talent. They were not mere theological arguments; but with the wild and furious abstractions of bigotry were often blended various illustrations from history, art, and science, and a tone of keen and delicate satire, which at once refined and made them readable. It is remarkable that almost the whole of the Latin writings of this period abound in good taste, while those written in the vulgar tongue are chiefly coarse and trivial. Vondel and Hooft, the great poets of the time, wrote with genius and energy, but were deficient in judgment founded on good taste. The latter of these writers was also distinguished for his prose works; in honor of which Louis XIII. dignified him with letters patent of nobility, and decorated him with the order of St. Michael.
But while Holland was more particularly distinguished by the progress of the mechanical arts, to which Prince Maurice afforded unbounded patronage, the Belgian provinces gave birth to that galaxy of genius in the art of painting, which no equal period of any other country has ever rivalled. A volume like this would scarcely suffice to do justice to the merits of the eminent artists who now flourished in Belgium; at once founding, perfecting, and immortalizing the Flemish school of painting. Rubens, Vandyck, Teniers, Crayer, Jordaens, Sneyders, and a host of other great names, crowd on us with claims for notice that almost make the mention of any an injustice to the rest. But Europe is familiar with their fame; and the widespread taste for their delicious art makes them independent of other record than the combination of their own exquisite touch, undying tints, and unequalled knowledge of nature. Engraving, carried at the same time to great perfection, has multiplied some of the merits of the celebrated painters, while stamping the reputation of its own professors. Sculpture, also, had its votaries of considerable note. Among these, Des Jardins and Quesnoy held the foremost station. Architecture also produced some remarkable names.
The arts were, in short, never held in higher honor than at this brilliant epoch. Otto Venire, the master of Rubens, held most important employments. Rubens himself, appointed secretary to the privy council of the archdukes, was subsequently sent to England, where he negotiated the peace between that country and Spain. The unfortunate King Charles so highly esteemed his merit that he knighted him in full parliament, and presented him with the diamond ring he wore on his own finger, and a chain enriched with brilliants. David Teniers, the great pupil of this distinguished master, met his due share of honor. He has left several portraits of himself; one of which hands him down to posterity in the costume, and with the decorations of the belt and key, which he wore in his capacity of chamberlain to the archduke Leopold, governor-general of the Spanish Netherlands.
The intestine disturbances of Holland during the twelve years' truce, and the enterprises against Friesland and the duchy of Cleves, had prevented that wise economy which was expected from the republic. The annual ordinary cost of the military establishment at that period amounted to thirteen million florins. To meet the enormous expenses of the state, taxes were raised on every material. They produced about thirty million florins a year, independent of five million each for the East and West India companies. The population in 1620, in Holland, was about six hundred thousand, and the other provinces contained about the same number.
It is singular to observe the fertile erections of monopoly in a state founded on principles of commercial freedom. The East and West India companies, the Greenland company, and others, were successively formed. By the effect of their enterprise, industry and wealth, conquests were made and colonies founded with surprising rapidity. The town of Amsterdam, now New York, was founded in 1624; and the East saw Batavia rise up from the ruins of Jacatra, which was sacked and razed by the Dutch adventurers.
The Dutch and English East India companies, repressing their mutual jealousy, formed a species of partnership in 1619 for the reciprocal enjoyment of the rights of commerce. But four years later than this date an event took place so fatal to national confidence that its impressions are scarcely yet effaced—this was the torturing and execution of several Englishmen in the island of Amboyna, on pretence of an unproved plot, of which every probability leads to the belief that they were wholly innocent. This circumstance was the strongest stimulant to the hatred so evident in the bloody wars which not long afterward took place between the two nations; and the lapse of two centuries has not entirely effaced its effects. Much has been at various periods written for and against the establishment of monopolizing companies, by which individual wealth and skill are excluded from their chances of reward. With reference to those of Holland at this period of its history, it is sufficient to remark that the great results of their formation could never have been brought about by isolated enterprises; and the justice or wisdom of their continuance are questions wholly dependent on the fluctuations in trade, and the effects produced on that of any given country by the progress and the rivalry of others.
With respect to the state of manners in the republic, it is clear that the jealousies and emulation of commerce were not likely to lessen the vice of avarice with which the natives have been reproached. The following is a strong expression of one, who cannot, however, be considered an unprejudiced observer, on occasion of some disputed points between the Dutch and English maritime tribunals—"The decisions of our courts cause much ill-will among these people, whose hearts' blood is their purse."[5] While drunkenness was a vice considered scarcely scandalous, the intrigues of gallantry were concealed with the most scrupulous mystery—giving evidence of at least good taste, if not of pure morality. Court etiquette began to be of infinite importance. The wife of Count Ernest Casimir of Nassau was so intent on the preservation of her right of precedence that on occasion of Lady Carleton, the British ambassadress, presuming to dispute the pas, she forgot true dignity so far as to strike her. We may imagine the vehement resentment of such a man as Carleton for such an outrage. The lower orders of the people had the rude and brutal manners common to half-civilized nations which fight their way to freedom. The unfortunate king of Bohemia, when a refugee in Holland, was one day hunting; and, in the heat of the chase, he followed his dogs, which had pursued a hare, into a newly sown corn-field: he was quickly interrupted by a couple of peasants armed with pitchforks. He supposed his rank and person to be unknown to them; but he was soon undeceived, and saluted with unceremonious reproaches. "King of Bohemia! King of Bohemia!" shouted one of the boors, "why do you trample on my wheat which I have so lately had the trouble of sowing?" The king made many apologies, and retired, throwing the whole blame on his dogs. But in the life of Marshal Turenne we find a more marked trait of manners than this, which might be paralleled in England at this day. This great general served his apprenticeship in the art of war under his uncles, the princes Maurice and Frederick Henry. He appeared one day on the public walk at The Hague, dressed in his usual plain and modest style. Some young French lords, covered with gold, embroidery, and ribbons, met and accosted him: a mob gathered round; and while treating Turenne, although unknown to them, with all possible respect, they forced the others to retire, assailed with mockery and the coarsest abuse.
[Footnote 5: Carleton.]
But one characteristic, more noble and worthy than any of those thus briefly cited, was the full enjoyment of the liberty of the press in the United Provinces. The thirst of gain, the fury of faction, the federal independence of the minor towns, the absolute power of Prince Maurice, all the combinations which might carry weight against this grand principle, were totally ineffectual to prevail over it. And the republic was, on this point, proudly pre-eminent among surrounding nations.
CHAPTER XIX
FROM THE PEACE OF MUNSTER TO THE PEACE OF NIMEGUEN
A.D. 1648—1678
The completion of the peace of Munster opens a new scene in the history of the republic. Its political system experienced considerable changes. Its ancient enemies became its most ardent friends, and its old allies loosened the bonds of long-continued amity. The other states of Europe, displeased at its imperious conduct, or jealous of its success, began to wish its humiliation; but it was little thought that the consummation was to be effected at the hands of England.
While Holland prepared to profit by the peace so brilliantly gained, England, torn by civil war, was hurried on in crime and misery to the final act which has left an indelible stain on her annals. Cromwell and the parliament had completely subjugated the kingdom. The unfortunate king, delivered up by the Scotch, was brought to a mock trial, and condemned to an ignominious death. Great as were his faults, they are almost lost sight of in the atrocity of his opponents; so surely does disproportioned punishment for political offences produce a reaction in the minds that would approve a commensurate penalty. The United Provinces had preserved a strict neutrality while the contest was undecided. The Prince of Orange warmly strove to obtain a declaration in favor of his father-in-law, Charles I. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, his sons, who had taken refuge at The Hague, earnestly joined in the entreaty; but all that could be obtained from the states-general was their consent to an embassy to interpose with the ferocious bigots who doomed the hapless monarch to the block. Pauw and Joachimi, the one sixty-four years of age, the other eighty-eight, the most able men of the republic, undertook the task of mediation. They were scarcely listened to by the parliament, and the bloody sacrifice took place.
The details of this event, and its immediate consequences, belong to English history; and we must hurry over the brief, turbid, and inglorious stadtholderate of William II., to arrive at the more interesting contest between the republic which had honorably conquered its freedom, and that of the rival commonwealth, which had gained its power by hypocrisy, violence, and guilt.
William II. was now in his twenty-fourth year. He had early evinced that heroic disposition which was common to his race. He panted for military glory. All his pleasures were those usual to ardent and high-spirited men, although his delicate constitution seemed to forbid the indulgence of hunting, tennis, and the other violent exercises in which he delighted. He was highly accomplished; spoke five different languages with elegance and fluency, and had made considerable progress in mathematics and other abstract sciences. His ambition knew no bounds. Had he reigned over a monarchy as absolute king, he would most probably have gone down to posterity a conqueror and a hero. But, unfitted to direct a republic as its first citizen, he has left but the name of a rash and unconstitutional magistrate. From the moment of his accession to power, he was made sensible of the jealousy and suspicion with which his office and his character were observed by the provincial states of Holland. Many instances of this disposition were accumulated to his great disgust; and he was not long in evincing his determination to brave all the odium and reproach of despotic designs, and to risk everything for the establishment of absolute power. The province of Holland, arrogating to itself the greatest share in the reforms of the army, and the financial arrangements called for by the transition from war to peace, was soon in fierce opposition with the states-general, which supported the prince in his early views. Cornelius Bikker, one of the burgomasters of Amsterdam, was the leading person in the states of Holland; and a circumstance soon occurred which put him and the stadtholder in collision, and quickly decided the great question at issue.
The admiral Cornellizon de Witt arrived from Brazil with the remains of his fleet, and without the consent of the council of regency there established by the states-general. He was instantly arrested by order of the Prince of Orange, in his capacity of high-admiral. The admiralty of Amsterdam was at the same time ordered by the states-general to imprison six of the captains of this fleet. The states of Holland maintained that this was a violation of their provincial rights, and an illegal assumption of power on the part of the states-general; and the magistrates of Amsterdam forced the prison doors, and set the captains at liberty. William, backed by the authority of the states-general, now put himself at the head of a deputation from that body, and made a rapid tour of visitation to the different chief towns of the republic, to sound the depths of public opinion on the matters in dispute. The deputation met with varied success; but the result proved to the irritated prince that no measures of compromise were to be expected, and that force alone was to arbitrate the question. The army was to a man devoted to him. The states-general gave him their entire, and somewhat servile, support. He, therefore, on his own authority, arrested the six deputies of Holland, in the same way that his uncle Maurice had seized on Barneveldt, Grotius, and the others; and they were immediately conveyed to the castle of Louvestein.
In adopting this bold and unauthorized measure, he decided on an immediate attempt to gain possession of the city of Amsterdam, the central point of opposition to his violent designs. William Frederick, count of Nassau, stadtholder of Friesland, at the head of a numerous detachment of troops, marched secretly and by night to surprise the town; but the darkness and a violent thunderstorm having caused the greater number to lose their way, the count found himself at dawn at the city gates with a very insufficient force; and had the further mortification to see the walls well manned, the cannon pointed, the draw-bridges raised, and everything in a state of defence. The courier from Hamburg, who had passed through the scattered bands of soldiers during the night, had given the alarm. The first notion was that a roving band of Swedish or Lorraine troops, attracted by the opulence of Amsterdam, had resolved on an attempt to seize and pillage it. The magistrates could scarcely credit the evidence of day, which showed them the count of Nassau and his force on their hostile mission. A short conference with the deputies from the citizens convinced him that a speedy retreat was the only measure of safety for himself and his force, as the sluices of the dikes were in part opened, and a threat of submerging the intended assailants only required a moment more to be enforced.
Nothing could exceed the disappointment and irritation of the Prince of Orange consequent on this transaction. He at first threatened, then negotiated, and finally patched up the matter in a mariner the least mortifying to his wounded pride. Bikker nobly offered himself for a peace-offering, and voluntarily resigned his employments in the city he had saved; and De Witt and his officers were released. William was in some measure consoled for his disgrace by the condolence of the army, the thanks of the province of Zealand, and a new treaty with France, strengthened by promises of future support from Cardinal Mazarin; but, before he could profit by these encouraging symptoms, domestic and foreign, a premature death cut short all his projects of ambition. Over-violent exercise in a shooting party in Guelders brought on a fever, which soon terminated in an attack of smallpox. On the first appearance of his illness, he was removed to The Hague; and he died there on the 6th of November, 1650, aged twenty-four years and six months.
The death of this prince left the state without a stadtholder, and the army without a chief. The whole of Europe shared more or less in the joy or the regret it caused. The republican party, both in Holland and in England, rejoiced in a circumstance which threw back the sovereign power into the hands of the nation; the partisans of the House of Orange deeply lamented the event. But the birth of a son, of which the widowed princess of Orange was delivered within a week of her husbands death, revived the hopes of those who mourned his loss, and offered her the only consolation which could assuage her grief. This child was, however, the innocent cause of a breach between his mother and grandmother, the dowager-princess, who had never been cordially attached to each other. Each claimed the guardianship of the young prince; and the dispute was at length decided by the states, who adjudged the important office to the elector of Brandenburg and the two princesses jointly. The states of Holland soon exercised their influence on the other provinces. Many of the prerogatives of the stadtholder were now assumed by the people; and, with the exception of Zealand, which made an ineffectual attempt to name the infant prince to the dignity of his ancestors under the title of William III., a perfect unanimity seemed to have reconciled all opposing interests. The various towns secured the privileges of appointing their own magistrates, and the direction of the army and navy devolved to the states-general.
The time was now arrived when the wisdom, the courage, and the resources of the republic were to be put once more to the test, in a contest hitherto without example, and never since equalled in its nature. The naval wars between Holland and England had their real source in the inveterate jealousies and unbounded ambition of both countries, reciprocally convinced that a joint supremacy at sea was incompatible with their interests and their honor, and each resolved to risk everything for their mutual pretensions—to perish rather than yield. The United Provinces were assuredly not the aggressors in this quarrel. They had made sure of their capability to meet it, by the settlement of all questions of internal government, and the solid peace which secured them against any attack on the part of their old and inveterate enemy; but they did not seek a rupture. They at first endeavored to ward off the threatened danger by every effort of conciliation; and they met, with temperate management, even the advances made by Cromwell, at the instigation of St. John, the chief justice, for a proposed, yet impracticable coalition between the two republics, which was to make them one and indivisible. An embassy to The Hague, with St. John and Strickland at its head, was received with all public honors; but the partisans of the families of Orange and Stuart, and the populace generally, openly insulted the ambassadors. About the same time Dorislas, a Dutchman naturalized in England, and sent on a mission from the parliament, was murdered at The Hague by some Scotch officers, friends of the banished king; the massacre of Amboyna, thirty years before, was made a cause of revived complaint; and altogether a sum of injuries was easily made up to turn the proposed fantastic coalition into a fierce and bloody war.
The parliament of England soon found a pretext in an outrageous measure, under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce. They passed the celebrated act of navigation, which prohibited all nations from importing into England in their ships any commodity which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country. This law, though worded generally, was aimed directly at the Dutch, who were the general factors and carriers of Europe. Ships were seized, reprisals made, the mockery of negotiation carried on, fleets equipped, and at length the war broke out.
In the month of May, 1652, the Dutch admiral, Tromp, commanding forty-two ships of war, met with the English fleet under Blake in the Straits of Dover; the latter, though much inferior in number, gave a signal to the Dutch admiral to strike, the usual salutation of honor accorded to the English during the monarchy. Totally different versions have been given by the two admirals of what followed. Blake insisted that Tromp, instead of complying, fired a broadside at his vessel; Tromp stated that a second and a third bullet were sent promptly from the British ship while he was preparing to obey the admiral's claim. The discharge of the first broadside is also a matter of contradiction, and of course of doubt. But it is of small consequence; for whether hostilities had been hurried on or delayed, they were ultimately inevitable. A bloody battle began: it lasted five hours. The inferiority in number on the side of the English was balanced by the larger size of their ships. One Dutch vessel was sunk; another taken; and night parted the combatants.
The states-general heard the news with consternation: they despatched the grand pensionary Pauw on a special embassy to London. The imperious parliament would hear of neither reason nor remonstrance. Right or wrong, they were resolved on war. Blake was soon at sea again with a numerous fleet; Tromp followed with a hundred ships; but a violent tempest separated these furious enemies, and retarded for a while the rencounter they mutually longed for. On the 16th of August a battle took place between Sir George Ayscue and the renowned De Ruyter, near Plymouth, each with about forty ships; but with no decisive consequences. On the 28th of October, Blake, aided by Bourn and Pen, met a Dutch squadron of nearly equal force off the coast of Kent, under De Ruyter and De Witt. The fight which followed was also severe, but not decisive, though the Dutch had the worst of the day. In the Mediterranean, the Dutch admiral Van Galen defeated the English captain Baddely, but bought the victory with his life. And, on the 29th of November, another bloody conflict took place between Blake and Tromp, seconded by De Ruyter, near the Goodwin Sands. In this determined action Blake was wounded and defeated; five English ships, taken, burned, or sunk; and night saved the fleet from destruction. After this victory Tromp placed a broom at his masthead, as if to intimate that he would sweep the Channel free of all English ships.
Great preparations were made in England to recover this disgrace; eighty sail put to sea under Blake, Dean, and Monk, so celebrated subsequently as the restorer of the monarchy. Tromp and De Ruyter, with seventy-six vessels, were descried on the 18th of February, escorting three hundred merchantmen up Channel. Three days of desperate fighting ended in the defeat of the Dutch, who lost ten ships of war and twenty-four merchant vessels. Several of the English ships were disabled, one sunk; and the carnage on both sides was nearly equal. Tromp acquired prodigious honor by this battle; having succeeded, though defeated, in saving, as has been seen, almost the whole of his immense convoy. On the 12th of June and the day following two other actions were fought: in the first of which the English admiral Dean was killed; in the second, Monk, Pen, and Lawson amply revenged his death by forcing the Dutch to regain their harbors with great loss.
The 21st of July was the last of these bloody and obstinate conflicts for superiority. Tromp issued out once more, determined to conquer or die. He met the enemy off Scheveling, commanded by Monk. Both fleets rushed to the combat. The heroic Dutchman, animating his sailors with his sword drawn, was shot through the heart with a musket-ball. This event, and this alone, won the battle, which was the most decisive of the whole war. The enemy captured or sunk nearly thirty ships. The body of Tromp was carried with great solemnity to the church of Delft, where a magnificent mausoleum was erected over the remains of this eminently brave and distinguished man.
This memorable defeat, and the death of this great naval hero, added to the injury done to their trade, induced the states-general to seek terms from their too powerful enemy. The want of peace was felt throughout the whole country. Cromwell was not averse to grant it; but he insisted on conditions every way disadvantageous and humiliating. He had revived his chimerical scheme of a total conjunction of government, privileges, and interests between the two republics. This was firmly rejected by John de Witt, now grand pensionary of Holland, and by the States under his influence. But the Dutch consented to a defensive league; to punish the survivors of those concerned in the massacre of Amboyna; to pay nine thousand pounds of indemnity for vessels seized in the Sound, five thousand pounds for the affair of Amboyna, and eighty-five thousand pounds to the English East India Company, to cede to them the island of Polerone in the East; to yield the honor of the national flag to the English; and, finally, that neither the young Prince of Orange nor any of his family should ever be invested with the dignity of stadtholder. These two latter conditions were certainly degrading to Holland; and the conditions of the treaty prove that an absurd point of honor was the only real cause for the short but bloody and ruinous war which plunged the Provinces into overwhelming difficulties.
For several years after the conclusion of this inglorious peace, universal discontent and dissension spread throughout the republic. The supporters of the House of Orange, and every impartial friend of the national honor, were indignant at the act of exclusion. Murmurs and revolts broke out in several towns; and all was once more tumult, agitation, and doubt. No event of considerable importance marks particularly this epoch of domestic trouble. A new war was at last pronounced inevitable, and was the means of appeasing the distractions of the people, and reconciling by degrees contending parties. Denmark, the ancient ally of the republic, was threatened with destruction by Charles Gustavus, king of Sweden, who held Copenhagen in blockade. The interests of Holland were in imminent peril should the Swedes gain the passage of the Sound. This double motive influenced De Witt; and he persuaded the states-general to send Admiral Opdam with a considerable fleet to the Baltic. This intrepid successor of the immortal Tromp soon came to blows with a rival worthy to meet him. Wrangel, the Swedish admiral, with a superior force, defended the passage of the Sound; and the two castles of Cronenberg and Elsenberg supported his fleet with their tremendous fire. But Opdam resolutely advanced; though suffering extreme anguish from an attack of gout, he had himself carried on deck, where he gave his orders with the most admirable coolness and precision, in the midst of danger and carnage. The rival monarchs witnessed the battle; the king of Sweden from the castle of Cronenberg, and the king of Denmark from the summit of the highest tower in his besieged capital. A brilliant victory crowned the efforts of the Dutch admiral, dearly bought by the death of his second in command, the brave De Witt, and Peter Florizon, another admiral of note. Relief was poured into Copenhagen. Opdam was replaced in the command, too arduous for his infirmities, by the still more celebrated De Ruyter, who was greatly distinguished by his valor in several successive affairs: and after some months more of useless obstinacy, the king of Sweden, seeing his army perish in the island of Funen, by a combined attack of those of Holland and Denmark, consented to a peace highly favorable to the latter power.
These transactions placed the United Provinces on a still higher pinnacle of glory than they had ever reached. Intestine disputes were suddenly calmed. The Algerines and other pirates were swept from the seas by a succession of small but vigorous expeditions. The mediation of the States re-established peace in several of the petty states of Germany. England and France were both held in check, if not preserved in friendship, by the dread of their recovered power. Trade and finance were reorganized. Everything seemed to promise a long-continued peace and growing greatness, much of which was owing to the talents and persevering energy of De Witt; and, to complete the good work of European tranquillity, the French and Spanish monarchs concluded in this year the treaty known by the name of the "peace of the Pyrenees."
Cromwell had now closed his career, and Charles II. was restored to the throne from which he had so long been excluded. The complimentary entertainments rendered to the restored king in Holland were on the proudest scale of expense. He left the country which had given him refuge in misfortune, and done him honor in his prosperity, with profuse expressions of regard and gratitude. Scarcely was he established in his recovered kingdom, when a still greater testimony of deference to his wishes was paid, by the states-general formally annulling the act of exclusion against the House of Orange. A variety of motives, however, acting on the easy and plastic mind of the monarch, soon effaced whatever of gratitude he had at first conceived. He readily entered into the views of the English nation, which was irritated by the great commercial superiority of Holland, and a jealousy excited by its close connection with France at this period.
It was not till the 22d of February, 1665, that war was formally declared against the Dutch; but many previous acts of hostility had taken place in expeditions against their settlements on the coast of Africa and in America, which were retaliated by De Ruyter with vigor and success. The Dutch used every possible means of avoiding the last extremities. De Witt employed all the powers of his great capacity to avert the evil of war; but nothing could finally prevent it, and the sea was once more to witness the conflict between those who claimed its sovereignty. A great battle was fought on the 31st of June. The duke of York, afterward James II., commanded the British fleet, and had under him the earl of Sandwich and Prince Rupert. The Dutch were led on by Opdam; and the victory was decided in favor of the English by the blowing up of that admiral's ship, with himself and his whole crew. The loss of the Dutch was altogether nineteen ships. De Witt the pensionary then took in person the command of the fleet, which was soon equipped; and he gave a high proof of the adaptation of genius to a pursuit previously unknown, by the rapid knowledge and the practical improvements he introduced into some of the most intricate branches of naval tactics.
Immense efforts were now made by England, but with a very questionable policy, to induce Louis XIV. to join in the war. Charles offered to allow of his acquiring the whole of the Spanish Netherlands, provided he would leave him without interruption to destroy the Dutch navy (and, consequently, their commerce), in the by no means certain expectation that its advantages would all fall to the share of England. But the king of France resolved to support the republic. The king of Denmark, too, formed an alliance with them, after a series of the most strange tergiversations. Spain, reduced to feebleness, and menaced with invasion by France, showed no alacrity to meet Charles's overtures for an offensive treaty. Van Galen, bishop of Munster, a restless prelate, was the only ally he could acquire. This bishop, at the head of a tumultuous force of twenty thousand men, penetrated into Friesland; but six thousand French were despatched by Louis to the assistance of the republic, and this impotent invasion was easily repelled.
The republic, encouraged by all these favorable circumstances, resolved to put forward its utmost energies. Internal discords were once more appeased; the harbors were crowded with merchant ships; the young Prince of Orange had put himself under the tuition of the states of Holland and of De Witt, who faithfully executed his trust; and De Ruyter was ready to lead on the fleet. The English, in spite of the dreadful calamity of the great fire of London, the plague which desolated the city, and a declaration of war on the part of France, prepared boldly for the shock.
The Dutch fleet, commanded by De Ruyter and Tromp, the gallant successor of his father's fame, was soon at sea. The English, under Prince Rupert and Monk, now duke of Albemarle, did not lie idle in port. A battle of four days continuance, one of the most determined and terrible up to this period on record, was the consequence. The Dutch claim, and it appears with justice, to have had the advantage. But a more decisive conflict took place on the 25th of July,[6] when a victory was gained by the English, the enemy having three of their admirals killed. "My God!" exclaimed De Ruyter; during this desperate fight, and seeing the certainty of defeat; "what a wretch I am! Among so many thousand bullets, is there not one to put an end to my miserable life?"
[Footnote 6: In all these naval battles we have followed Hume and the English historians as to dates, which, in almost every instance, are strangely at variance with those given by the Dutch writers.]
The king of France hastened forward in this crisis to the assistance of the republic and De Witt, by a deep stroke of policy, amused the English with negotiation while a powerful fleet was fitted out. It suddenly appeared in the Thames, under the command of De Ruyter, and all England was thrown into consternation. The Dutch took Sheerness, and burned many ships of war; almost insulting the capital itself in their predatory incursion. Had the French power joined that of the Provinces at this time, and invaded England, the most fatal results to that kingdom might have taken place. But the alarm soon subsided with the disappearance of the hostile fleet; and the signing the peace of Breda, on the 10th of July, 1667, extricated Charles from his present difficulties. The island of Polerone was restored to the Dutch, and the point of maritime superiority was, on this occasion, undoubtedly theirs.
While Holland was preparing to indulge in the luxury of national repose, the death of Philip IV. of Spain, and the startling ambition of Louis XIV., brought war once more to their very doors, and soon even forced it across the threshold of the republic. The king of France, setting at naught his solemn renunciation at the peace of the Pyrenees of all claims to any part of the Spanish territories in right of his wife, who was daughter of the late king, found excellent reasons (for his own satisfaction) to invade a material portion of that declining monarchy. Well prepared by the financial and military foresight of Colbert for his great design, he suddenly poured a powerful army, under Turenne, into Brabant and Flanders; quickly overran and took possession of these provinces; and, in the space of three weeks, added Franche-Comte to his conquests. Europe was in universal alarm at these unexpected measures; and no state felt more terror than the republic of the United Provinces. The interest of all countries seemed now to require a coalition against the power which had abandoned the House of Austria only to settle on France. The first measure to this effect was the signing of the triple league between Holland, Sweden, and England, at The Hague, on the 13th of January, 1668. But this proved to be one of the most futile confederations on record. Charles, with almost unheard-of perfidy throughout the transaction, fell in with the designs of his pernicious, and on this occasion purchased, cabinet, called the Cabal; and he entered into a secret treaty with France, in the very teeth of his other engagements. Sweden was dissuaded from the league by the arguments of the French ministers; and Holland in a short time found itself involved in a double war with its late allies.
A base and piratical attack on the Dutch Smyrna fleet by a large force under Sir Robert Holmes, on the 13th of March, 1672, was the first overt act of treachery on the part of the English government. The attempt completely failed, through the prudence and valor of the Dutch admirals; and Charles reaped only the double shame of perfidy and defeat. He instantly issued a declaration of war against the republic, on reasoning too palpably false to require refutation, and too frivolous to merit record to the exclusion of more important matter from our narrow limits.
Louis at least covered with the semblance of dignity his unjust co-operation in this violence. He soon advanced with his army, and the contingents of Munster and Cologne, his allies, amounting altogether to nearly one hundred and seventy thousand men, commanded by Conde, Turenne, Luxemburg, and others of the greatest generals of France. Never was any country less prepared than were the United Provinces to resist this formidable aggression. Their army was as naught; their long cessation of military operations by land having totally demoralized that once invincible branch of their forces. No general existed who knew anything of the practice of war. Their very stores of ammunition had been delivered over, in the way of traffic, to the enemy who now prepared to overwhelm them. De Witt was severely, and not quite unjustly, blamed for having suffered the country to be thus taken by surprise, utterly defenceless, and apparently without resource. Envy of his uncommon merit aggravated the just complaints against his error. But, above all things, the popular affection to the young prince threatened, in some great convulsion, the overthrow of the pensionary, who was considered eminently hostile to the illustrious House of Orange.
[Illustration: A HOLLAND BEAUTY]
William III., prince of Orange, now twenty-two years of age, was amply endowed with those hereditary qualities of valor and wisdom which only required experience to give him rank with the greatest of his ancestors. The Louvenstein party, as the adherents of the House of Orange were called, now easily prevailed in their long-conceived design of placing him at the head of affairs, with the titles of captain-general and high admiral. De Witt, anxious from personal considerations, as well as patriotism, to employ every means of active exertion, attempted the organization of an army, and hastened the equipment of a formidable fleet of nearly a hundred ships of the line and half as many fire-ships. De Ruyter, now without exception the greatest commander of the age, set sail with this force in search of the combined fleets of England and France, commanded by the duke of York and Marshal D'Etrees. He encountered them, on the 6th of May, 1672, at Solebay. A most bloody engagement was the result of this meeting. Sandwich, on the side of the English, and Van Ghent, a Dutch admiral, were slain. The glory of the day was divided; the victory doubtful; but the sea was not the element on which the fate of Holland was to be decided.
The French armies poured like a torrent into the territories of the republic. Rivers were passed, towns taken, and provinces overrun with a rapidity much less honorable to France than disgraceful to Holland. No victory was gained—no resistance offered; and it is disgusting to look back on the fulsome panegyrics with which courtiers and poets lauded Louis for those facile and inglorious triumphs. The Prince of Orange had received the command of a nominal army of seventy thousand men; but with this undisciplined and discouraged mass he could attempt nothing. He prudently retired into the province of Holland, vainly hoping that the numerous fortresses on the frontiers would have offered some resistance to the enemy. Guelders, Overyssel and Utrecht were already in Louis's hands. Groningen and Friesland were threatened. Holland and Zealand opposed obstruction to such rapid conquest from their natural position; and Amsterdam set a noble example to the remaining towns—forming a regular and energetic plan of defence, and endeavoring to infuse its spirit into the rest. The sluices, those desperate sources at once of safety and desolation, were opened; the whole country submerged; and the other provinces following this example, extensive districts of fertility and wealth were given to the sea, for the exclusion of which so many centuries had scarcely sufficed.
The states-general now assembled, and it was decided to supplicate for peace at the hands of the combined monarchs. The haughty insolence of Louvois, coinciding with the temper of Louis himself, made the latter propose the following conditions as the price of peace: To take off all duties on commodities exported into Holland; to grant the free exercise of the Romish religion in the United Provinces; to share the churches with the Catholics, and to pay their priests; to yield up all the frontier towns, with several in the heart of the republic; to pay him twenty million livres; to send him every year a solemn embassy, accompanied by a present of a golden medal, as an acknowledgment that they owed him their liberty; and, finally, that they should give entire satisfaction to the king of England.
Charles, on his part, after the most insulting treatment of the ambassadors sent to London, required, among other terms, that the Dutch should give up the honor of the flag without reserve, whole fleets being expected, even on the coasts of Holland, to lower their topsails to the smallest ship under British colors; that the Dutch should pay one million pounds sterling toward the charges of the war, and ten thousand pounds a year for permission to fish in the British seas; that they should share the Indian trade with the English; and that Walcheren and several other islands should be put into the king's hands as security for the performance of the articles.
The insatiable monarchs overshot the mark. Existence was not worth preserving on these intolerable terms. Holland was driven to desperation; and even the people of England were inspired with indignation at this monstrous injustice. In the republic a violent explosion of popular excess took place. The people now saw no safety but in the courage and talents of the Prince of Orange. He was tumultuously proclaimed stadtholder. De Witt and his brother Cornelis, the conscientious but too obstinate opponents of this measure of salvation, fell victims to the popular frenzy. The latter, condemned to banishment on an atrocious charge of intended assassination against the Prince of Orange, was visited in his prison at The Hague by the grand pensionary. The rabble, incited to fury by the calumnies spread against these two virtuous citizens, broke into the prison, forced the unfortunate brothers into the street, and there literally tore them to pieces with circumstances of the most brutal ferocity. This horrid scene took place on the 27th of August, 1672.
The massacre of the De Witts completely destroyed the party of which they were the head. All men now united under the only leader left to the country. William showed himself well worthy of the trust, and of his heroic blood. He turned his whole force against the enemy. He sought nothing for himself but the glory of saving his country; and taking his ancestors for models, in the best points of their respective characters, he combined prudence with energy, and firmness with moderation. His spirit inspired all ranks of men. The conditions of peace demanded by the partner kings were rejected with scorn. The whole nation was moved by one concentrated principle of heroism; and it was even resolved to put the ancient notion of the first William into practice, and abandon the country to the waves, sooner than submit to the political annihilation with which it was threatened. The capability of the vessels in their harbors was calculated; and they were found sufficient to transport two hundred thousand families to the Indian settlements. We must hasten from this sublime picture of national desperation. The glorious hero who stands in its foreground was inaccessible to every overture of corruption. Buckingham, the English ambassador, offered him, on the part of England and France, the independent sovereignty of Holland, if he would abandon the other provinces to their grasp; and, urging his consent, asked him if he did not see that the republic was ruined? "There is one means," replied the Prince of Orange, "which will save me from the sight of my country's ruin—I will die in the last ditch."
Action soon proved the reality of the prince's profession. He took the field; having first punished with death some of the cowardly commanders of the frontier towns. He besieged and took Naarden, an important place; and, by a masterly movement, formed a junction with Montecuculi, whom the emperor Leopold had at length sent to his assistance with twenty thousand men. Groningen repulsed the bishop of Munster, the ally of France, with a loss of twelve thousand men. The king of Spain (such are the strange fluctuations of political friendship and enmity) sent the count of Monterey, governor of the Belgian provinces, with ten thousand men to support the Dutch army. The elector of Brandenburg also lent them aid. The whole face of affairs was changed; and Louis was obliged to abandon all his conquests with more rapidity than he had made them. Two desperate battles at sea, on the 28th of May and the 4th of June, in which De Ruyter and Prince Rupert again distinguished themselves, only proved the valor of the combatants, leaving victory still doubtful. England was with one common feeling ashamed of the odious war in which the king and his unworthy ministers had engaged the nation. Charles was forced to make peace on the conditions proposed by the Dutch. The honor of the flag was yielded to the English; a regulation of trade was agreed to; all possessions were restored to the same condition as before the war; and the states-general agreed to pay the king eight hundred thousand patacoons, or nearly three hundred thousand pounds.
With these encouraging results from the Prince of Orange's influence and example, Holland persevered in the contest with France. He, in the first place, made head, during a winter campaign in Holland, against Marshal Luxemburg, who had succeeded Turenne in the Low Countries, the latter being obliged to march against the imperialists in Westphalia. He next advanced to oppose the great Conde, who occupied Brabant with an army of forty-five thousand men. After much manoeuvring, in which the Prince of Orange displayed consummate talent, he on only one occasion exposed a part of his army to a disadvantageous contest. Conde seized on the error; and of his own accord gave the battle to which his young opponent could not succeed in forcing him. The battle of Senef is remarkable not merely for the fury with which it was fought, or for its leaving victory undecided, but as being the last combat of one commander and the first of the other. "The Prince of Orange," said the veteran Conde (who had that day exposed his person more than on any previous occasion), "has acted in everything like an old captain, except venturing his life too like a young soldier."
The campaign of 1675 offered no remarkable event; the Prince of Orange with great prudence avoiding the risk of a battle. But the following year was rendered fatally remarkable by the death of the great De Ruyter,[7] who was killed in an action against the French fleet in the Mediterranean; and about the same time the not less celebrated Turenne met his death from a cannon-ball in the midst of his triumphs in Germany. This year was doubly occupied in a negotiation for peace and an active prosecution of the war. Louis, at the head of his army, took several towns in Belgium: William was unsuccessful in an attempt on Maestricht. About the beginning of winter, the plenipotentiaries of the several belligerents assembled at Nimeguen, where the congress for peace was held. The Hollanders, loaded with debts and taxes, and seeing the weakness and slowness of their allies, the Spaniards and Germans, prognosticated nothing but misfortunes. Their commerce languished; while that of England, now neutral amid all these quarrels, flourished extremely. The Prince of Orange, however, ambitious of glory, urged another campaign; and it commenced accordingly. In the middle of February, Louis carried Valenciennes by storm, and laid siege to St. Omer and Cambray. William, though full of activity, courage, and skill, was, nevertheless, almost always unsuccessful in the field, and never more so than in this campaign. Several towns fell almost in his sight; and he was completely defeated in the great battle of Mount Cassel by the duke of Orleans and Marshal Luxemburg. But the period for another peace was now approaching. Louis offered fair terms for the acceptance of the United Provinces at the congress of Nimeguen, April, 1678, as he now considered his chief enemies Spain and the empire, who had at first only entered into the war as auxiliaries. He was, no doubt, principally impelled in his measures by the marriage of the Prince of Orange with the lady Mary, eldest daughter of the duke of York, and heir presumptive to the English crown, which took place on the 23d of October, to the great joy of both the Dutch and English nations. Charles was at this moment the arbiter of the peace of Europe; and though several fluctuations took place in his policy in the course of a few months, as the urgent wishes of the parliament and the large presents of Louis differently actuated him, still the wiser and more just course prevailed, and he finally decided the balance by vigorously declaring his resolution for peace; and the treaty was consequently signed at Nimeguen, on the 10th of August, 1678. The Prince of Orange, from private motives of spleen, or a most unjustifiable desire for fighting, took the extraordinary measure of attacking the French troops under Luxemburg, near Mons, on the very day after the signing of this treaty. He must have known it, even though it were not officially notified to him; and he certainly had to answer for all the blood so wantonly spilled in the sharp though undecisive action which ensued. Spain, abandoned to her fate, was obliged to make the best terms she could; and on the 17th of September she also concluded a treaty with France, on conditions entirely favorable to the latter power.