and that the ftate might refume them whenever it faw fuf ficient reafon ;-concluding, that the entire command of the garrifon fhould hereafter veft in the council committee of the ftates of Holland.

At this period a memorial was prefented to the ftates general by the ambaffador of Pruffia, in the name of the king his master, ftrongly urging the interpofition of their high mightineffes, in order that the prince ftadtholder might peaceably enjoy the rights and incontestable pre rogatives appertaining to his dignity of hereditary stadtholder.

This application produced not the leaft effect. The ftates of Holland, who, as became their fuperior impor tance, affumed the lead in the oppofition to the stadtholder, ordered, as if in contempt of this interference, the arms of the house of Orange to be taken out of the colors of the troops belonging to that province, and that the Swifs guards attendant on the perfon of the prince should be disbanded.

They towns of Hattem and Elbourg in the province of Guelderland, having manifefted a peculiarly refractory and rebellious difpofition, the states of Gueldres, in which asfembly the Orange intereft yet predominated, commiffi. oned the ftadtholder to employ military force for the reduction of the burghers. But the states of Holland, Zealand, Overyffel and Groningen joined in prohibiting the troops of their respective provinces from acting in this fervice. The towns in queftion were however attacked and captured by the prince; and Utrecht, which had deeply imbibed the fame fentiments, was, in confequence of their resistance to the states of that province now affembled at Amersfort, expected to be immediately invefted. On this intelligence, the ftates of Holland difpatched a letter to the prince, demanding of him in twenty-four hours an explicit declaration of his intentions. The troops of the province were at the fame time ordered to march to the

frontier

frontier for the protection of Utrecht, and a cordon was formed from Naerden to Schoonhoven. And notwithftanding an explanation and apology from the prince, within the time prefcribed, the states of Holland proceeded (Sept. 16, 1786) to the violent refolution of suspending him from his office of captain general of the province, by a majority of fixteen out of nineteen voices of which that affembly is compofed.

The prince of Orange on this occafion addreffed a long and elaborate letter to the ftates of Holland. He had exprefsly faid in his former remonftrance, relative to the garrison of the Hague, "We have not the most distant intention to question the fuperiority of your noble and great mightineffes over the military, as well of the whole province as the garrison of the Hague. Never, fays he, could we fuppofe ourselves invested with a power equal, much lefs fuperior, to that of the ftates over the military, and that we might act according to our own pleasure, and independently of the SOVEREIGN." But he now ventured to affume an higher tone; and declaring "his office of hereditary captain general of Holland and Weft Friezland to have been secured to him by the unanimous vote of all the members of the ftate, he affirmed, that as the refolution by which the office had been conferred, paffed neminė contradicente, it could not, fuppofing it to be revocable, be cancelled or even suspended without the like unanimity."

This fudden haughtiness of language may, without hefitation, be attributed to an event of great moment, which had recently taken place in the death of Frederic III. king of Pruffia (August 17, 1786), who was fucceeded by his nephew Frederic William, to whom the prince of Orange was nearly allied by marriage to his fifter, the princefs Wilhelmina of Pruffia,

The new monarch, feeling for the fituation of his relatives, and eager to make a display of his power, entered with far more zeal into the interefts of the prince than his

illuftrious

illuftrious predeceffor, who during a reign of forty-fix years had excited the admiration of Europe by the greatnefs of his talents and the fplendor of his fucceffes. He had raised Pruffia from obfcurity and infignificance to the rank of a first-rate power in Europe; and had left his fucceffor in poffeffion of a flourishing kingdom, an immense treasure, and an army of 200,000 men in the highest reputation for courage and discipline.

In a memorial prefented by the count de Goertz, his Pruffian majesty's ambaffador extraordinary to the states general (Sept. 18, 1786), he expreffes without referve "the warm part which he takes in the unhappy diffentions fubfifting between fome of the provinces and the stadtholder, and the very extraordinary oppreffions which that prince is innocently obliged to fuffer-and urging that a durable termination may be put to these differences, in order that his ferene highness the prince stadtholder may return with honor and propriety to the Hague, and refume his high employments-infifting alfo upon the great intereft he had, as the nearest neighbour of the united provinces, that the government of the republic conformable to the antient conftitution fhould not be changed in any effential-point."

A fhort time previous to the delivery of this paper, a memorial had been prefented to the states on the part of the king of England, containing in language fomewhat more guarded the fame fentiments; protesting indeed against the interference of any foreign power in the internal affairs of the republic, the management and direction of which it is declared to be the wish of his Britannic majefty to preferve uncontrolled in the hands of thofe to whom it has been committed by the CONSTITUTION."

Notwithstanding this powerful interference in behalf of the prince of Orange, the states of Holland fhewed themfelves in the highest degree averfe from every idea of accommodation. And the ftates general having at length

come

come to a refolution, notwithstanding the oppofition of that great and leading province, to invite the mediation of Great Britain and Pruffia-the ftates of Holland, inflamed with fo unauthorised a proceeding, declared themselves determined rather to ftrike out their names from the union of Utrecht, than to fuffer fuch a measure to receive the fanction of the republic.

The prince of Orange having now removed his court to Nimeguen, an ineffectual negotiation was nevertheless carried on during the winter of 1786-7, through the medium of the count de Goertz and M. de Rayneval the French envoy. Every thing on the breaking up of thefe conferences wore the face of war. The prince encamped near the city of Utrecht oppofite to the cordon formed by the troops of Holland. The ftates general, whofe conftitutional powers were unhappily too limited and feeble to interpofe with efficacy, could do nothing more to avert the calamities which menaced the nation, then enforce by a refolution that article of the union which forbad the troops of the republic from marching into any province without the leave of the states of that province first obtained.

From the commencement of the conteft, the incapacity and intractability of the prince of Orange had been very apparent. Head of the houfe of Naffau, he difplayetl neither the talents nor virtues which had for ages been fuppofed attached to that illuftrious name. The princess, his confort, was faid to poffefs a much larger share of spirit as well as understanding. In the month of June (1787), for reafons which have never perfectly transpired, her royal highness, then refident at Nimeguen, adopted the bold and hazardous refolution of proceeding in perfon to the Hague, where the states general were at that time affembled, accompanied only by the baronefs de Waffanaer and a few domeftics. As might previously be expected, she was arrested in her progrefs at about a league beyond Schoonhoven, and forced back to Nimeguen. This inci

dent

dent brought matters to a crifis. On the 10th of July a memorial was addreffed by the Pruffian monarch to the ftates of Holland, in which he affected to confider the indignity offered to his fifter as a perfonal infult to himself. To avenge this pretended affront, the duke of Brunswick, who commanded the Pruffian forces in the contiguous duchy of Cleves, entered Holland at the head of an army confifting of about twenty thousand men on the 13th of September (1787). Notwithstanding the previous probability of this invafion, the confternation of the Dutch nation was extreme, and the country seemed every-where unprepared for refiftance. Utrecht, beyond all other cities of the union diftinguished for the violence of her de mocratic zeal, furrendered almost as soon as fummoned. The march of the Pruffian general bore the appearance of a triumphal proceffion. While a futile refolve to fufpend the office of ftadtholder paffed the fenate of Amfterdam, Gorcum, Dordt, Schoonhoven and other towns in his route fubmitted tamely to the conqueror. On the seventh day from the commencement of the invafion, the prince of Orange made his public entry into the Hague. Amfterdam only made a fhew of resistance: but on the 10th of October that proud capital, now closely invested, opened its gates to the victor. To the astonishment of the world, that republic which maintained a conteft of eighty years against the power of Spain, which contended for the empire of the ocean with Great Britain, and which repelled the attacks of Louis XIV. in the zenith of his glory, was over-run by the arms of Pruffia in a fingle month. Such and fo dire are the effects which flow from civil difcord and difunion! In the whole of this tranfaction, Pruffia acted in intimate and avowed concert with England; and while France was flowly affembling troops in the vicinity of Liege, and the emperor was prefenting feeble remonftrances at Berlin, the revolution projected by the stadtholderian faction was carried into complete execution, and