11 - William V: the Patriot challenge

Summary

The event which released the latent conflicts of Dutch political life was the rebellion of Britain's American colonies in 1775, which at once divided Dutch sympathies and interests. William V unhesitatingly found the English government in the right and the colonists in the wrong; it was obvious, he thought, that a sovereign had the right to put down rebels. He had a copy of the American Declaration of Independence in his hands by 20 August 1776, and he read it with boiling indignation. It was a parody of the Dutch Act of Abjuration of 1581: how could the tyranny of Philip II be compared to the rule of George III? It was the mere fact of rebellion that he loathed. In a conversation with Hardenbroek, who raised the parallel with the overthrow of James II by William III, he said, “In that event, I am a Jacobite.”

For all their hostility to the American rebels, William and Brunswick were anything but happy with English threats against the Republic if it did not halt the smuggling between the Dutch island of St Eustatius in the Caribbean and the Americans. The English were particularly indignant because a Dutch warship off St Eustatius had returned the salute of an American warship, in effect recognizing the independence of the new United States of America. Brunswick found the demand of the English ambassador for immediate punishment of the governor of St Eustatius “unparalleled,” indeed impossible for a state that wished to keep its sovereignty and independence.