BOOK to the antient constitution, should not be changed XXIII. in any essential point." 1767. A short time previous to the delivery of this paper, a memorial had been presented to the States on the part of the king of England, containing, in language somewhat more guarded, the same sentiments; 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 majesty to preserve uncontrolled in the hands of those to whom it has been committed by the CONSTITUTION. Notwithstanding this powerful interference in behalf of the prince of Orange, the states of Holland shewed themselves in the highest degree averse from every idea of accommodation. And the States General having at length come to a resolution, notwithstanding the opposition of that great and leading province, to invite the mediation of Great Britain and Prussia-the states of Holland, inflamed with so unauthorised a proceeding, declared themselves determined rather to strike out their names from the union of Utrecht, than to suffer such a measure to receive the sanction of the republic. The prince of Orange having now removed his court to Nimeguen, an ineffectual negotiation was carried on during the winter of 1786-7, through XXIII. 1787. the medium of the count de Goertz and M. de BOOK Rayneval the French envoy. The stadtholder became inflexible in his pretensions.* Every thing on the breaking up of these conferences wore the face of war. The prince encamped near the city of Utrecht, opposite to the cordon formed by the troops of Holland. The States General, whose constitutional powers were unhappily too limited and feeble to interpose with efficacy, could do nothing more to avert the calamities which menaced the nation than enforce by a resolution 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 contest, the incapacity and intractability of the prince of Orange had been very apparent. Head of the house of Nassau, he displayed neither the talents nor virtues which had for ages been supposed attached to that illustrious name. The princess, his consort, • Frederic William (says the count de Segur), staggered by the representations of the minister of France at Berlin, suddenly changed his plans and his language, sent more pacific instructions to his ambassador, and directed him to enter on a negociation, which might have re-established tranquillity in a solid manner, if the machiavelism of sir James Harris, the resentment of the princess of Orange, and the weakness of the court of France, had not united to overturn all the plans of reason, and destroy all the combinations of prudence. Memoirs of Frederic William II. vol. I. p. 81. XXIII. 1787. BOOK was said to possess a much larger share of spirit as well as understanding. In the month of June (1787), with a view, as was universally believed by the patriots, of exciting an insurrectionary movement, her royal highness, then resident at Nimeguen, adopted the bold and hazardous resolution of proceeding in person to the Hague, where the States General were at that time assembled, accompanied only by the baroness de Wassanaer and a few domestics. As might previously be expected, she was arrested in her progress at about a league beyond Schoonhoven, and forced back to Nimeguen. This incident brought matters to a crisis. On the 10th of July a memorial was addressed by the Prussian monarch to the states of Holland, in which he affected to consider the indignity offered to his sister as a personal insult to himself. To avenge this pretended insult, the Holland. duke of Brunswic, who commanded the Prussian forces in the contiguous duchy of Cleves, entered Holland at the head of an army consisting of about twenty thousand men on the 13th of September, 1787. Notwithstanding the previous probability of this invasion, the consternation of the Dutch nation was extreme, and the country seemed every-where unprepared for resistance. Utrecht, beyond all other cities of the union distinguished for the violence of her democratic zeal, surrendered almost as soon as summoned. This important Prussian army enters XXIII. 1787. place was garrisoned by no less than 7000 men, BOOK exclusive of the armed citizens, commanded by the Rhingrave of Salm, one of those base but specious characters who appear anxious to gain the public confidence merely to betray it. In a council of war he declared the city to be incapable of sustaining a siege, and concluded for its immediate evacuation, in contradiction to the opinion of M. Bellonet, a French officer at the head of the artillery, who engaged to maintain it for a month. The order of the rhingrave was executed in the utmost confusion. The troops of the garrison retired precipitately towards Amsterdam, and the commander consulting only his personal safety suddenly disappeared. After this conquest the march of the Prussian general bore the appearance of a triumphal procession. While a futile resolve to suspend the office of stadtholder passed the senate of Amsterdam-Gorcum, Dort, Schoonhoven, and other towns in his route, submitted tamely to the conqueror. On the seventh day from the commencement of the invasion, the prince of Orange made his public entry into the Hague. Amsterdam only made a shew of resistance: but on the icth 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 contest of eighty years against the power of Spain, which contended XXIII. 1787. BOOK 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 Prussia in a single month. Such and so dire are the effects which flow from civil discord and disunion! In the whole of this transaction, Prussia acted in intimate and avowed concert with England; and while France was slowly assembling troops in the vicinity of Liege, and the emperor was presenting feeble remonstrances at Berlin, the revolution projected by the stadtholderian faction was carried into complete execution, and the stadtholder triumphantly reinstated in all his real and pretended prerogatives. It is not to be imagined that the court of Versailles saw the termination of this great contest with frigid indifference; but the distracted state of her own affairs, and the increasing discontents and disorders of the kingdom, in a manner compelled her reluctant acquiescence. The projects of the new minister of finance, M. de Calonne, proved unsuccessful and abortive. In the latter end of the year 1785, a loan of 3,330,000l. being the acknowledged deficit of the current year, was negotiated; which the parliament of Paris, after repeated remonstrances, at last registered only in pursuance of the king's positive commands; at the same time accompanying it with a resolution importing "that the public economy was the only |