John De Witt; or, Twenty Years' Interregnum in the Stadtholdership of the Seventeenth Century1

M. Esquirou de Parieu

doi:10.1017/S2046165800001155

John De Witt; or, Twenty Years' Interregnum in the Stadtholdership of the Seventeenth Century1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2016

M. Esquirou de Parieu

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M. Esquirou de Parieu*: Affiliation:
Imperial Council of State Institute of France, &c. &c

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The history of the United Provinces, and of Holland especially, from the close of the Spanish rule down to the establishment of the modern monarchy of the Netherlands, is distinguished for its manifestation of a permanent struggle between different opposite principles. Liberty and authority, municipal principle and state principle, republic and monarchy, the spirit of federal isolation and that of centralization, appear to give battle to each other upon a territory itself with difficulty defended from the waves of the ocean by the watchful industry of its inhabitants.

Type: Research Article
Information: Journal of the Institute of Actuaries , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , July 1859 , pp. 205 - 231

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S2046165800001155 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1860

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It is known that there was, in the eighteenth century, a second interruption of the stadtholdership, from 1702 to 1747.

References

^{page 205 note 2} Davies, : History of Holland, vol. i., p. 76, et seq.Google Scholar ; Analysis of the Dutch Constitution prior to 1579.

^{page 205 note 3} This internal organization of the towns of Holland is not without analogy with the existence of large and small councils in the organization of the Swiss towns. The instructive work of M. Cherbulliez, La Démocratieen Suisse, may he advantageously consulted on this head.

^{page 206 note 1} Ritterschaft, rittergut.

^{page 206 note 2} In 1609, Brabant was divided between the United Provinces and the Spanish Netherlands.

^{page 206 note 3} See Davies, vol. i., p. 85. Meteren, Emanuel de: Histoire des Pays Bas, traduit du Flamand; La Haye, 1618 Google Scholar.

^{page 206 note 4} Mr. Davies attributes to the example of Holland the first ideas of civil and religious liberty introduced into England (vol. i., p. 1). Harington, according to Toland, used to say that he had learnt in Holland the sense of the fundamental maxims of political science.

^{page 206 note 5} Kerroux, : Abrégé de l'Histoire de Holland, p. 322 Google Scholar . See also ibid., p. 348.

^{page 207 note 1} “Maurice, stadtholder of Holland and of Zealand, had obtained, in addition, the stadtholdership of Guelderland, Utrecht, and Overyssel, in 1591, after the decease of the Count de Niewenaar” (Kerroux, p. 385). “The stadtholdership of Friesland, and that of Groningen, were customarily held, in the seventeenth century, by another branch of the House of Nassau. Nevertheless, it appears that Frederick Henry and William II. were invested with the stadtholdership of Groningen” (Kerroux, pp. 590 and 599).

^{page 207 note 2} Hoeven, Emmanuel Van der. Leven en Dood van Cornells en Johan De Witt, t. ii, p. 17; Amsterdam, 1708 Google Scholar.

^{page 207 note 3} “The devotion of the ministers of religion to the House of Orange had declared itself from the days of Maurice” (Kerroux, p. 429).

^{page 207 note 4} See articles 25 and 21 of the Instructions for the Post of Pensionary-Councillor, at two different epochs, quoted textually by Van der Hoeven, t. i., pp. 17 and 112. In terms of the 1st article of the second of these instructions, the pensionary-councillor had o t be acquainted at least with the Latin and French languages, and to belong to the reformed religion. See, also, the German translation of the work of Simons upon John De Witt and his Times, t. i., pp. 31, 221, 228, et seq.

^{page 208 note 1} See the article by Mignet, M. in Revue des Deux Mondes, 1841 Google Scholar.

^{page 209 note 1} Davies, t. i., pp. 526 and 691.

^{page 209 note 2} The particle “de,” in Dutch, corresponds with our article “le”; and “van” with our particle “de.”

^{page 209 note 3} See what is said of the journey of James De Witt in Sweden, and of the relations which he had at Lubeck with the ambassador of France, Chanut, in the Recueil des Lettres de Négotiationsde Jean De Witt, French translation, t. i., pp. 120 and 343. Van Hall, Lofrede of De Witt, p. 57 Google Scholar.

^{page 209 note 4} “Remember,” said he to them, “the prison of Louvenstein!” (Kerroux, p. 655.)

^{page 209 note 5} Van Hall, Lofrede of De Witt, pp. 59 and 70 Google Scholar.

^{page 210 note 1} Emmanuel Van der Hoeven, t. i., p. 14. We say “pensionary-councillor,” and not “pensionary of the council”; following a very pertinent note, as it seems to us, of the German translator of the work of M. Simons, part i., p. 221.

^{page 210 note 2} Cats was a poet surnamed the Dutch La Fontaine.

^{page 210 note 3} Thurloe, voli., p. 359.

^{page 210 note 4} The stadtholdership of Groningen, with which Maurice, Frederick Henry, and William II. had been invested (Kerroux, pp, 529, 590, and 599), was reunited with that of Friesland, after the death of William II., in the person of William Frederick (Ker-roux, p. 631). They both passed to his son Henry Casimir, in 1664 (Kerroux, p. 718). The grandson of the latter joined the stadtholdership of Guelderland to the other two, in 1722, and became stadtholder-general of the seven provinces in 1747.

^{page 210 note 5} Davies, pp. 700 to 707.

^{page 210 note 6} Ibid p. 696.

^{page 211 note 1} Walter Harris, p. 2. Van der Hoeven, t. i., pp. 29 to 32.

^{page 211 note 2} Davies, p. 721.

^{page 212 note 1} Kerroux, p. 662.

^{page 212 note 2} See his correspondence with Boreel, , in the Lettres et Négotiations, t. i., pp. 129,142, 120 Google Scholar . On the other side, see the passage in d'Estrades, quoted by Kerroux, p. 704.

^{page 212 note 3} German translation of Simons, t. i., p. 97.

^{page 212 note 4} Kerroux, p. 569.

^{page 213 note 1} Van der Hoeven, i, p, 41.

^{page 213 note 2} Kerroux, p. 671. The letter inserted in Thurloe's State Papers (i. p. 391) has reference to this incident. It relates that the house of John De Witt was nearly being pillaged, and that the windows of it were broken by the mob.

^{page 213 note 3} Thorbecke, loco citato.

^{page 213 note 4} Van der Hoeven, i. p. 87. The title of “Highness” was given, for the first time, to Frederick Henry, by the king of France. The stadtholder had previously only borne the title of “Excellency” (Kerroux, p. 581).

^{page 215 note 1} Gamier, : Elémensde Finance, p. 114 Google Scholar.

^{page 215 note 2} Mémoires de Jean De Witt, Edition of 1709, p. 312. Davies i., p. 677.

^{page 215 note 3} Van der Hoeven, i., p. 78.

^{page 215 note 4} Cours d'Economie Politique iv., p. 356.

^{page 215 note 5} Van der Hoeven, i., p. 76. It is enunciated in the Letters of John De Witt, iii., p. 101, and in Kerroux's work, p. 622, that this conversion of rents produced a saving of fourteen millions of florins per annum; but if the debt of Holland consisted of one hundred and forty millions, as is stated in the pretended Mémoiresde Jean De Witt, French translation, p 312, et seq., and in Van der Hoeven, i., p. 25, the annual saving ought to have been twenty-eight millions by the reduction of interest from 5 to 4 per cent. In any event, it is difficult to explain how, even by the application of the sum of twenty-eight millions a year, the debt could have been reduced, from a hundred and forty millions in 1655, to sixty-five millions in 1672, unless it be admitted that there were other sums applied to the redemption besides the revenues saved in the conversion, as may be inferred from what is said by Simons, i. p. 150.

[M. De Parieu has, in this Note, accidentally mistaken the principal, or capital sum of the Dutch debt, for the interest thereon. Assuming the principal at a hundred and forty millions of florins, it is obvious that the annual saving, from the reduction of 1 per cent. in the interest, was 1,400,000 florins; and more than double this annual sum would, as M. De Parieu suggests, have been requisite to reduce the debt by seventy-five millions in about 16 years. Consult p. 314 of the 3rd (Ratisbon) Edition, of 1709, of the so-called Memoirs of John lie Witt, where the calculation is that a hundred aniforty millions of capital stock would be entirely redeemed, in a period of 41 years, by employment of the reduction of 1 per cent. in the rate of interest as an annual sinking-fund. This calculation is quite correct at 4 per cent.—F. H.]

^{page 216 note 1} Simons, : Johan De Witt en Zijn Tijd, Derde Deel, p. 100; Amsterdam, 1842 Google Scholar.

^{page 216 note 2} Van der Hoeven, i. p. 122.

^{page 216 note 3} Ibid.

^{page 216 note 4} Ibid., p. 104. It is observable, that , in the conferences preceding the declaration of war with Portugal by the States-General, in 1657, the Dutch envoys made use of the Latin language.

^{page 217 note 1} The Reef capitulated in 1654. The war between England and Holland had prevented the United Provinces from succouring their colony, as had been requested of them through the deputation sent to Europe, in 1652, by the Dutch governor of Pernam-buco (see Beauchamp, : History of the Brazils iii., p. 291, et seq.)Google Scholar . De Witt has been wrongfully reproached upon the subject of this taking of the Reef.

^{page 217 note 2} Van der Hoeven, i , p. 148.

^{page 217 note 3} Ibid. i. p. 184. Thus similarly, we find, at a later period, John De Witt smoothing differences in Overyssel (ibid. ii., p. 233).

^{page 217 note 4} See, respecting all this, Van der Hoeven, pp. 87 and 143 to 146, and the German translation of the work of Simons, p. 129, vol. i. Walter Harris, in his History of William III., nevertheless accuses De Witt of having neglected the prince's education (p. 3). Burnet, on his side, says that the prince had learnt neither history nor military art (i., p. 580). After the death of the princess Mary, young William, still aged under 11 years, happily found an enlightened protectress in the person of his maternal grandmother, Amelia de Solms.

^{page 218 note 1} M. Simons (1st part, p. 231, of the German translation) advances that Charles II. retained resentment on the subject of the clause of the treaty of Westminster, which denied to the republic the right of receiving any English rebel on her territory. Hume adds, that Charles II. had as much aversion from the Dutch character as taste for the French character (ch. 1xix).

^{page 218 note 2} Van der Hoeven relates different attacks directed by the English against Dutch commerce in 1664 (ii., p. 224).

^{page 218 note 3} Kerroux, pp. 706, 727, 783.

^{page 219 note 1} Hume relates that Charles II. was suspected of having declared war against the Dutch to divert a part of the subsidies conceded on account of the hostilities. He adds, that the taste of Charles II. for marine affairs might have contributed to his determination.

^{page 219 note 2} It is right to observe, that the necessity for showing front to the formidable approaches of the French fleet did sometimes weaken the English squadrons.

^{page 219 note 3} Van der Hoeven, i., p. 251. John De Witt renewed a nautical exploit analogous to that which we have just referred to, in 172 (ibid., p. 279). See also the German translation of Simons, part ii., p. 173.

^{page 220 note 1} See the letter, wrongly dated, in Pepys i., p. 110, of the 8vo. edition.

^{page 220 note 2} Van der Hoeven, pp. 25 to 37.

^{page 220 note 3} Happily, from an English point of view.—F. H.

^{page 221 note 1} Martin Tromp, killed in 1653 in the war against Cromwell.

^{page 221 note 2} Holland was parsimonious to her servants, an d John De Witt, whose allowance at the outset was 3,000 florins, did not receive at the epoch of his greatest power more than 7,000 florins a year as pensionary-councillor.—See the work of Simons, part iii., c. 2.

^{page 221 note 3} Van der Hoeven, ii., pp. 17 and 18.

^{page 222 note 1} Van der Hoeven.

^{page 222 note 2} Ibid i., pp 243-250.

^{page 222 note 3} Ibid. ii, p. 197.

^{page 222 note 4} Raynal, : Histoire du Sladthouderat, edition of 1750, i., p. 221 Google Scholar.

^{page 223 note 1} The Court of England had been much annoyed by certain writings and medals disseminated in Holland.—Van der Hoeven, ii., pp. 243, 244.

^{page 223 note 2} Frederick William, the great elector, true founder of that which has since become the kingdom of Prussia, possessed at this period Brandenburg, the Duchy of Prussia, Eastern Pomerania, the Archbishoprics and secularized Bishoprics of Magdeburg, Hal-berstadt, Minden, and Camin. He bordered upon the Netherlands, through the possession of Cleves and Berg.

^{page 223 note 3} Davies, III., pp. 79 and 91.

^{page 223 note 4} I., p. 245.

^{page 223 note 5} See, in this point of view, Van der Hoeven, pp. 247, 258, 264, 298.

^{page 223 note 6} Ibid., pp. 240 and 261.

^{page 224 note 1} Siècle de Louis XIV. i., p. 396, Ed. of 1830.

^{page 224 note 2} See the 13th chapter of the 3rd part of Simons's work.

^{page 224 note 3} It is asserted that he recited to his judges, in the midst of the most cruel agonies, these verses of Horace—

“Justum ac tenacem propositi virum,

Non civium ardor prava jubentium,

Non vultus instantis tyranni

Mente quatit solida.”

^{page 224 note 4} Kerroux, p. 819.

^{page 225 note 1} They were transferred, in the night of the 21st to 22nd August, into the vault which John De Witt possessed in the new church at the Hague (Kerroux, p. 837). M. Veegens has published, upon this point, a letter, in which he advances that the tomb i s marked by the number 77 in the church referred to (Jets over het graf der de Witten. Uit eenen brief aan M. J. Heemskerk).

^{page 225 note 2} Kerroux, p. 841.

^{page 225 note 3} Upon the history of the French refugees, see the Moniteur Universel of the 2nd and 3rd November, and 3rd December, 1851.

^{page 225 note 4} Expressions of the Emperor Napoleon III., i., p. 243 of his Œuvres.

^{page 226 note 1} Fox has said of him, “The most truly patriotic minister that ever appeared on the public stage;” and Raynal, perhaps a little exaggerating in his appreciation of Cornelius De Witt, calls him the greatest man of the republic, after his brother. Did not this eulogy belong more appropriately to the illustrious friend of John De Witt, Michael De Ruyter?

^{page 226 note 2} See the little work published at the Hague, in 1757, under the following title: Het Karakter Van den Road pensionaris Jean de Witt, en zyne factie beschreeven door den Graf d'Estrades, &c.

^{page 227 note 1} The author of the Encyclopédic Méthodique reproaches John De Witt in this last respect (V^o Provinces Unies).

^{page 227 note 2} Vol. i., p. 584.

^{page 227 note 3} The only positive testimony against De Witt, quoted with that view by Kerroux, p. 704, is that of D'Estrades, who is convicted of error upon certain facts, such, for instance, as upon the part of ambassador, which he attributes to De Witt, at the time of the treaty.

^{page 227 note 4} Kerroux, p. 132.

^{page 227 note 5} De Buat left at De Witt's house, through carelessness, a letter which contained the sketch of a plot in favour of the prince of Orange. He was condemned to death and executed, the 2nd October, 1666. Van der Graaf, more culpable, was of the number of those who conspired against the person of the pensionary two months before the massacre of the 20th August, 1672. “He died,” it is related,“with great sentiments of piety and repentance, and was looked upon by the friends of the House of Orange as a martyr to the interests of that House” (Kerroux, p. 797).

^{page 228 note 1} Cours d'Études vi., p. 198.

^{page 228 note 2} John De Witt is the author of a little geometrical work, printed under the title of Elementa Linearum Curvarum, published for the first time, according to Van der Hoeven, by Francis Van Schooten, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Leyden, at Louis and Daniel Elzevir's, Amsterdam, 1659.—Van der Hoeven, i., p. 14.

^{page 229 note 1} I only quote with hesitation, in default of authorities being indicated, the following passage from an historical dictionary, composed by a society of men of letters, where it is said, upon the subject of De Witt:—“Not acquainted, in any way, with modern history or with the state of foreign Courts, he committed the most gross faults upon matters of ceremony.”

We are assured that there exists at the library of Leyden a collection of letters of John De Witt, bearing witness to a large acquaintance with French and Dutch literature.

^{page 229 note 2} The Encyclopédia Méthodique, article Finances, under the word Maîtrise, quotes the following passage, attributed to John De Witt:—“It is a hurtful and very useless thing to limit manufactures by guilds or trade-bodies, directors or provosts, or to order in any way in what manner the manufactures which are trafficked with foreign countries are to be made.”

^{page 229 note 3} The body of this work, published in 1670, in Dutch, under the title of Anwysing der pohtike gronden en maximen der Republike van Holland en West Friesland (Explanation of the bases and political maxims of the Republic of Holland and West Friesland), and translated into French under the title of Mémoires de Jean De Witt, is attributed to P. de Lacourt.

^{page 229 note 4} See chapter xii. of the Mémoires de Jean De Witt, translated from the original into French; the Hague, 1709. The chapter is entitled — “That the too great taxes will at length drive away all prosperity from Holland.”

^{page 230 note 1} London, 1851; printed by Laytons, 150, Fleet Street. It is inserted in pages 40 t o 57. (The reference is to the privately-printed copy of Mr. Hendriks's paper.)

^{page 230 note 2} Vide the second fragment of the Contributions to the History of Insurance, p. 28. (Third fragment in Assurance Magazine, vol. iii., p. 120.)

^{page 230 note 3} M. Ant. Lefèvre Pontalis, auditor of the Council of State, is occupied with extensive researches upon John De Witt. There may he expected from them interesting light on this remarkable period of a history which has not yet been treated upon in the French literature of our century. M. Combes, inspector of the Academy, recently charged with a mission, from the Minister of Public Instruction, to Holland, has also gleaned there information upon the epoch of John De Witt, and various curious letters of the councillor-pensionary written in the French language.

[Amongst other Frenchmen of eminence who interest themselve s on the subject of De Witt may be noticed M. Guizot, who was present at the reading of M. de Pareu's paper before the Academy of France, and who is connected by marriage with the De Witt family. One of his daughters is married to M. Conrad De Witt, and the other to M. Cornelius De Witt, and we have the best authority for mentioning that their families were residing last autumn with the illustrious ex-statesman at Val Richer.—F. H.]

[Following M. de Parieu's example, the name of De Witt has, throughout this paper, been spelt with two t's. It will, perhaps, be recollected, that in the papers for which Mr. Hendriks is responsible, the name was spelt with only one t. The latter orthography of the name was adopted, not on light grounds, but upon collation of such contemporaneous evidence, documentary, medallic and typographical, as was at hand. The conclusion arrived at was, that De Witt used to spell his name in more ways than one—like Buonaparte and numberless others.

The following questions were based upon this evidence, and inserted, by Mr. Hen-driks, in Notes and Queries, 2nd February, 1856:—

“1. Did the grand-pensionary, in his Latin correspondence with learned foreigners, or in signing diplomas and instructions in Latin, spell his name, habitually with one t?

“2. Did the grand-pensionary sign letters and state documents, in Dutch, habitually with two t's?

“3. Was there a period when the grand-pensionary changed his ways of spelling his signature?

“4. If queries 1 to 3 remain unsolved, are we not, nevertheless, justified in assuming that the facts above adverted to (viz., the evidence detailed) are sufficient to leave it open to us to spell the name either with one t or else with two t's; and to be equally free from the possible discomfort of the criticism of etymologists, or from the charge of abetting the ambiguity with which the ‘printer's devils’ of all countries treat the name of De Wit?”

These queries do not seem to have yet been answered; but, since their appearance, a very acute correspondent of Notes and Queries, writing under the initials H. B. C., altered (we assume, of course, the correctness of the printing) his way of spelling the name, from De Witt to De Wit. This alteration occurs in the course of the articles in which H. B. C. so fairly explains the barbarous conduct of William III. towards the De Wits, a conduct which is as great a blot upon his memory as is the massacre of Glencoe. Glencoe.

We are aware that some readers will say that the subject of this particular note is of no great importance. But we may reasonably differ from such a view, even on general grounds, in England at the present time (June, 1859), when the question whether the spelling of Bordeaux with two u's, or of Hofer with two f's be excusable or not, has just been a bone of contention between the supporters of the Civil Service Examination Commissioners, on the one side, and of Lord Malmesbury, ex parte the diplomatic service, on the other.—F. H.]

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