CLAMOURS OF THE DUTCH MERCHANTS, &c.

The Dutch had for some time carried on a very considerable traffic, not only in taking the fair advantages of their neutrality, but also in supplying the French with naval stores, and transporting the produce of the French sugar-colonies to Europe, as carriers hired by the proprietors. The English government, incensed at this unfair commerce, prosecuted with such flagrant partiality for their enemies, issued orders for the cruisers to arrest all ships of neutral powers that should have French property on board; and these orders were executed with rigour and severity. A great number of Dutch ships were taken and condemned as legal prizes, both in England and Jamaica: sometimes the owners met with hard measures, and some crews were treated with insolence and barbarity. The subjects of the United Provinces raised a loud clamour against the English, for having, by these captures, violated the law of nations and the particular treaty of commerce subsisting between Great Britain and the republic. Remonstrances were made to the English ministry, who expostulated, in their turn, with the deputies of the states-general; and the two nations were inflamed against each other with the most bitter animosity. The British resident at the Hague, in a conference with the states, represented that the king his master could not hope to see peace speedily re-established, if the neutral princes should assume a right of carrying on the trade of his enemies; that he expected, from their known justice, and the alliance by which they were so nearly connected with his subjects, they would honestly abandon this fraudulent commerce, and agree that naval stores should be comprehended in the class of contraband commodities. He answered some articles of the complaints they had made with an appearance of candour and moderation; declared his majesty’s abhorrence of the violences which had been committed upon the subjects of the United Provinces; explained the steps which had been taken by the English government to bring the offenders to justice, as well as to prevent such outrages for the future; and assured them that his Britannic majesty had nothing more at heart, than to renew and maintain, in full force, the mutual confidence and friendship by which the maritime powers of England and Holland had been so long united.

These professions of esteem and affection were not sufficient to quiet the minds and appease the resentment of the Dutch merchants; and the French party, which was both numerous and powerful, employed all their art and influence to exasperate their passions, and widen the breach between the two nations. The court of Versailles did not fail to seize this opportunity of insinuation: while, on one hand, their ministers and emissaries in Holland exaggerated the indignities and injuries which the states had sustained from the insolence and rapacity of the English; they, on the other hand, flattered and cajoled them with little advantages in trade, and formal professions of respect.—Such was the memorial delivered by the count d’Affry, intimating that the empress-queen being under an absolute necessity of employing all her forces to defend her hereditary dominions in Germany, she had been obliged to withdraw her troops from Ostend and Nieuport, and applied to the French king, as her ally nearest at hand, to garrison these two places; which, however, should be restored at the peace, or sooner, should her imperial majesty think proper. The spirit of the Dutch merchants, at this juncture, and their sentiments with respect to England, appeared with very high colouring in a memorial to the states-general, subscribed by two hundred and sixty-nine traders, composed and presented with equal secrecy and circumspection. In this famous remonstrance they complained, that the violences and unjust depredations committed by the English ships of war and privateers, on the vessels and effects of them and their fellow-subjects, were not only continued, but daily multiplied; and cruelty and excess carried to such a pitch of wanton barbarity, that the petitioners were forced to implore the assistance of their high mightinesses to protect, in the most efficacious manner, the commerce and navigation, which were the two sinews of the republic. For this necessary purpose they offered to contribute each his contingent, and to arm at their own charge; and other propositions were made for an immediate augmentation of the marine. While this party industriously exerted all their power and credit to effect a rupture with England, the princess-gouvernante employed all her interest and address to divert them from this object, and alarm them with respect to the power and designs of France; against which she earnestly exhorted them to augment their military forces by land, that they might be prepared to defend themselves against all invasion. At the same time she spared no pains to adjust the differences between her husband’s country and her father’s kingdom; and without doubt, her healing councils were of great efficacy in preventing matters from coming to a very dangerous extremity.