tation thereupon summoned a meeting of those members of the Extraordinary Cortes who still remained in the city, and directed physicians and the board of health to inquire into the foundation of the alarm; and

upon their representation that no other diseases existed in the city than the usual ones at the same season, the order for the removal of the government was withdrawn.

CHAPTER

will say, that if great and critical circumstances presented themselves, they were not superior to France and Me." To meet the exigencies of the time, an imperial decree was issued imposing 30 additional centimes to the duty for the current year on doors, windows, and patents, a double personal contribution or property tax, and an additional tax on salt. And a decree of the senate passed for the levy of 300,000 conscripts, with the preamble "Considering that the enemy has invaded the frontiers of the empire on the side of the Pyrenees and the North, and that those of the Rhine and beyond the Alps are threatened." By the other decrees of the senate, the powers of the deputies of the legislative body, of the fourth series, were prolonged during the whole of the approaching session; and the direct nomination of the president of that body was invested in the emperor, who before only chose one of five candidates presented to him by it; manifest proofs of the apprehensions he began to entertain of any thing like an appeal to the people!

An event more ominous to the French domination in Europe, and more auspicious to the cause of political freedom, than any which had hitherto occurred, was the Revolution in Holland, declared about this time. Nothing could be more repugnant to the manners and sentiments of the people of the United Provinces, or more fatal to their interests as a trading nation, than their annexation to the French empire; and though inability to resist had awed them into submission, it cannot be doubted that a rooted abhorrence of the yoke im

posed upon them was the prevalent sentiment of the Batavian community. In the month of February a conspiracy had been discovered at Amsterdam, for the purpose of subverting the existing government, in which a few obscure persons attached to the House of Orange were engaged; but the punishment of the conspirators had suppressed the project in its infancy. At length, apparently froin no previous concert, but as the result of a sudden burst of public feeling, roused to action by the arrival of the allied troops on the Dutch frontier, on the 15th of November, the people of Amsterdam rose in a body, and with the old cry of Orange boven, universally put up the Orange colours, and proclaimed the sovereignty of that illustrious House. The populace displayed their hatred of the French by burning the watchhouses of the custom-house officers, and three of their vessels; and one of the officers was killed in the scuffle, but this was the only life lost on the occasion. The example of Amsterdam was followed by the other principal towns of the provinces of Holland and Utrecht. The French authorities were dismissed without injury, and a temporary government was proclaimed in the name of the prince of Orange, composed of the most respectable members of the old government, especially of those who were not employed by the French. On the 16th an administration was organized for Amsterdam under the direction of the armed burghers, and many of the leading citizens took upon themselves the care of preserving good order. Similar measures were a

dopted at the Hague, Rotterdam, and other places. The intelligence of these events was brought over on the 21st to London, by the Baron Perponcher and Mr. James Fagel, deputed by the provisional government to inform the Prince Regent and the Prince of Orange of the revolution which had taken place. They waited on the latter at his house in Harley-street, and invited him in the name of his countrymen to come and put himself at their head; a call which he readily obeyed. A cabinet council was immediately summoned, at which his Highness was present; and the unanimous resolution was taken, of affording instant aid to the Dutch patriots with all the force that the country could furnish; and never was a political measure adopted in which the English nation more heartily or universally concurred. On Novem ber 25th the prince of Orange embarked at Deal, for Holland, on board his Majesty's ship Warrior of 74 guns, accompanied by the earl of Clancarty. So unpremeditated had been the revolutionary movement of the Dutch, that no regular military force was at hand to support the hazardous enterprize of abolishing an organized domination; and although the French troops in the country were upon a low establishment, there was nothing but an half-armed populace to oppose them. Their commanders seem however to have been struck with a panic by the sudden ness of the change. Gen. Bouvet marched out of the Hague at the head of 300 soldiers, mostly Germans, who, when they had proceeded about twelve miles, hoisted the Orange cockade, severely beat VOL. LV.

their commander, and joined the patriots. It was, indeed, impossible in the present state of the European public to foresee how far defection from the French usurped authority might proceed. The evacuation of Amsterdam and Rotterdam was equally precipitate; and the armed douaniers, who seem to have formed the chief military force, were glad to escape in safety from places where they were peculiar objects of detestation. The first foreign aid that arrived to give confidence to the revolutionists was a body of 300 Cossacks, which presented itself before Amsterdam on the 23rd of November, and was admitted into the city on the following day. The remaining French, shut up in the old townhouse, thereupon surrendered; and the Cossacks, with a party of burghers, took possession of the fort between Amsterdam and Haarlem, which surrendered by capitulation. These Cossacks were the forerunners of the Russian army under general Winzingerode, who, on entering the Dutch territory, issued a proclamation calling upon the people to rise in support of the good cause; and marching along the Yssel by Zwoll, Zutphen, and Deventer, reached Amersfort on the 23rd, whence he dispatched his Cossacks. On the 24th the French, whose main force was posted at Gorcum, having recovered their spirits, made a general advance upon Amsterdam, Woerden, and Dordrecht. The attack upon Amsterdam was repulsed, the assailants losing five pieces of cannon. The body which advanced on Dordrecht, being opposed by the armed burghers and the gun-boats, was driven back [M]

1

with considerable loss. At Woerden they succeeded so far as to gain temporary possession of the place, in which all the outrages were committed that brutality and revenge could inspire. The prince of Orange landed on the 30th at Scheveling, amidst the acclamations of a great concourse of people, and immediately proceeded to the Hague, where he was received by the constituted authorities of that seat of government. It is a remarkable circumstance, and which may be productive of important future consequences, that his serene Highness was invited, on the commencement of this revolution, to take the reins of government, not under the ancient title of Stadtholder, but the new and indefinite one of Sovereign. Whence this alteration originated has not been made public; but we may learn from the past history of Holland, that the zealous friends of the House of Orange have always been vigilant to take occasion of the dangers and necessities of the state to enhance an authority perhaps too limited for the exertion of the powers requisite for the executive head of the Commonwealth. The post of the Brille on the day of the Prince's arrival de clared in his favour; and no in ternal resistance to the revolutionary movement was manifested except from admiral Verheul, commander of the Texel fleet. withstanding the desertion of great part of the Dutch sailors, he took possession with the French marines of the strong fort of the Helder, and declared his resolution of maintaining the authority which had placed him in his command. The Prussian general Bulow, on No

Not

vember 30th, took Arnheim by storm, the garrison of which was Amsterdam be→ put to the sword. ing now considered as in a state of security, the prince of Orange made his solemn entry on Decem ber 1st, amidst all the demonstra tions of public joy usual on the reception of a sovereign; now probably much more sincere than when they were lavished on the ruler of France. On this event, the General Commissaries of the National Government issued an address to the inhabitants, in which they announced the change in the supreme authority in the following terms: "It is not William the sixth whom the people of the Netherlands have recalled, without knowing what they might have to hope or expect from him. It is William the first, who as Sovereign Prince by the wish of the Netherlanders, appears as sovereign among that people, which once before has been delivered by another William I. from the slavery of a foreign despotism. Your civil liberty shall be secured by laws, by a constitution giving a basis to your freedom, and be better founded than ever." The Prince himself, on the following day, put forth a proclamation to the same purpose, alluding to that higher relation towards the Netherlanders in which he is placed in consequence of their desire, and in accepting which, "he sacrifices his own opinion to their wishes." He adverted to the "still somewhat critical circumstances" in which they were placed, and trusted in their co-operation to effect the complete deliverance of their country from a foreign yoke. The English guards now ar rived on the coast; a Prussian and