Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 118)

Sir T. E. May, Democracy in Europe, chapter 11 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 3, chapters 3-4 (volume 2).

J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands, chapters 30-52 (volumes 3-4).

Douglas Campbell, The Puritan in Holland England, and America, chapter 18 (volume 2).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1620. Rise and growth of Eastern trade. Formation of the Dutch East India Company.

"Previous to their assertion of national independence, the commerce of the Dutch did not extend beyond the confines of Europe. But new regions of traffic were now to open to their dauntless enterprise. It was in 1594 that Cornelius Houtman, the son of It brewer at Gouda, returned from Lisbon, where, having passed the preceding year, he had seen the gorgeous produce of the East piled on the quays of the Tagus. His descriptions fired the emulation of his friends at Amsterdam, nine of whom agreed to join stock and equip a little flotilla for a voyage round the Cape of Good Hope; Houtman undertook the command, and thus the marvellous commerce of the Dutch in India began. The influence which their trade with India and their settlements there exerted in maturing and extending the greatness of the Dutch, has often been overrated. It was a source, indeed, of infinite pride, and for a time of rapid and glittering profit; but it was attended with serious drawbacks, both of national expenditure and national danger. … From the outset they were forced to go armed. The four ships that sailed on the first voyage of speculation from Amsterdam, in 1595, were fitted out for either war or merchandise. They were about to sail into hitherto interdicted waters; they knew that the Portuguese were already established in the Spice Islands, whither they were bound; and Portugal was then a dependency of Spain. On their arrival at Java, they had, consequently, to encounter open hostility both from Europeans and the natives whom the former influenced against them. At Bali, however, they were better received; and, in 1597, they reached home with a rich cargo of spices and Indian wares. It was a proud and joyous day in Amsterdam when their return was known. … From various ports of Zealand and Holland 80 vessels sailed the following year to America, Africa, and India. Vainly the Portuguese colonists laboured to convince the native princes of the East that the Dutch were a mere horde of pirates with whom no dealings were safe. Their businesslike and punctilious demeanour, and probably, likewise, the judiciously selected cargoes with which they freighted their ships outwards, whereby they were enabled to offer better terms for the silk, indigo, and spice they wished to buy, rapidly disarmed the suspicion of several of the chiefs. … In 1602 the celebrated East India Company was formed under charter granted by the States-General,—the original capital being 6,000,000 guilders, subscribed by the merchants of Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn, Enkhuysen, Middleberg, but above all Amsterdam. They established factories at many places, both on the continent of India and in the islands; but their chief depot was fixed at Bantam," until, dissatisfied with certain taxes imposed on them by the lord of Bantam, they looked elsewhere for a station. "The sovereign of Java gladly offered them a settlement not above 100 miles distant, with full permission to erect such buildings as they chose, and an engagement that pepper (the chief spice thence exported) should be sent out of his dominions toll-free. These terms were accepted. Jocatra, a situation very propitious for traffic, was chosen as the site of their future factory. Warehouses of stone and mortar quickly rose; and dwellings, to the number of 1,000, were in a short time added. All nations had leave to settle and trade within its walls; and this was the origin of Batavia. In six years the Company sent out 46 vessels, of which 43 returned in due course laden with rich cargoes. … By the books of the Company it appeared that, during the next eleven years, they maintained 30 ships in the Eastern trade, manned by 5,000 seamen. … Two hundred per cent. was divided by the proprietors of the Company's stock on their paid-up capital in sixteen years. … But of all the proud results of their Indian commerce, that which naturally afforded to the Dutch the keenest sense of exultation, was the opportunity it afforded them of thoroughly undermining the once exclusive trade of Spain, not with foreign nations merely, but with her own colonies, and even at home. The infatuated policy of her government had prepared the way for her decline. … In the space of a few years the Dutch had taken and rifled 11 Spanish galleons, 'carkets and other huge ships, and made about 40 of them unserviceable.' So crippled was their colonial trade that, even for their own use, the Spaniards were obliged to buy nutmegs, cloves, and mace, from their hated rivals."

W. T. McCullagh, Industrial History of Free Nations, chapter 13 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: D. McPherson, Annals of Commerce, volume 2, pages 206-296.

J. Yeats, Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce, part 3, chapters 3-4.

{2277}

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1603-1619. Calvinistic persecution of Arminianism. The hunting down of John of Barneveldt by Prince Maurice. Synod of Dort.

Calvin's doctrine of predestination was strongly expressed in what was called the Heidelberg Catechism. "A synod of the pastors of Holland had decreed that this must be signed by all their preachers, and be to them what the Thirty-nine Articles are to the English Church and the Confession of Augsburg to the Lutherans. Many preachers hesitated to pledge themselves to doctrines that they did not think Scriptural nor according to primitive faith, and still more, not accordant with the eternal mercy of God. Of these Jacob Hermann, a minister of Amsterdam, or as he Latinised his name, Arminius, was the foremost, and under his influence a number of clergy refused their signature. The University of Leyden in 1603 chose Arminius as their Professor of Theology. The opposite party, in great wrath, insisted on holding a synod, and the States-General gave permission, but at first only on condition that there should be a revision of the confession of faith and catechism. The ministers refused, but the States-General insisted, led by John Barneveldt, then Advocate and Keeper of the Seals, who declared in their name that as 'foster fathers and protectors of the churches to them every right belonged.' It was an Erastian sentiment, but this opinion was held by all reformed governments, including the English, and Barneveldt spoke in the hope of mitigating Calvinistic violence. The Advocate of the States-General was in fact their mouthpiece. They might vote, but no one expressed their decisions at home or abroad save the Advocate; and Barneveldt, both from position and character, was thus the chief manager of civil affairs, and an equal if not a superior power to Maurice of Nassau, the Stadtholder and commander-in-chief, and recently, by the death of his elder brother, Prince of Orange. The question had even been mooted of giving him the sovereignty, but to this Barneveldt was strongly averse. Maurice knew very little about the argument, and his real feelings were Arminian, though jealousy of Barneveldt made him favour the opposite party, whose chief champion was Jacob Gomer, or Gomerus as he called himself. King James, though really holding with the Arminians, disliked Barneveldt, and therefore threw all the weight of England into the scale against them. Arguments were held before Maurice and before the university, in which three champions on the one side were pitted against three on the other, but nothing came of them but a good deal of audacious profanity, till Arminius, in ministering to the sick during a visitation of the plague at Amsterdam, caught the disease and died. He was so much respected that the University of Leyden pensioned his widow. They chose a young Genevese, named Conrad Voorst or Vorstius, as his successor. Voorst had written two books, one on the nature of God, Tractatus Theologicus de Deo, and the other, Exegesis Apologetica, in which (by Fuller's account) there was a considerable amount of materialism, and likewise what amounted to a denial of the Divine Omniscience, being no doubt a reaction from extreme Calvinism. King James met with the book, and was horrified at its statements. He conceived himself bound to interfere both as protector to the States—which he said had been cemented with English blood—and because the University of Leyden was much frequented by the youth of England and Scotland, who often completed their legal studies there. He ordered Sir Ralf Winwood, his ambassador at the Hague, to deliver a sharp remonstrance to the States, and to read them a catalogue of the dangerous and blasphemous errors that he had detected, recommending the States to protest against the appointment, and burn the books. Barneveldt was much distressed, and uncertain whether James really was speaking out of zeal for orthodoxy, or to have an excuse for a quarrel. Letters and arguments passed without number. … Leyden supported the professor it had invited, and, together with Barneveldt, felt that to expel a man whom they had chosen, at the bidding of a foreign sovereign, was almost accepting a yoke like that of the Inquisition. … Maurice, on the other hand, was glad to set the English King against Barneveldt, and to represent that support of the foes of strict Calvinism meant treachery to the Republic and a betrayal to Spain. Winwood, on the King's part, insisted on Vorstius's dismissal and banishment. … Maurice's own preacher, Uytenbogen, wrote a remonstrance on behalf of the Arminians, who were therefore sometimes termed Remonstrants, while the Gomerists, from their answer, were called Counter-Remonstrants. Unfortunately, political jealousy of Barneveldt on the part of Maurice caused the influence of Uytenbogen to decline. Most of the preachers and of the populace held to the Counter-Remonstrants and their old-fashioned Calvinism, most of the nobles and magistrates were Remonstrants. The question began to branch into a second, namely, whether the state had power to control the faith of all its subjects, and whether when it convoked a synod it could control its decisions, or was bound to enforce them absolutely and without question. … Whichever party was predominant in a place turned the other out of church. Appeals were made to the Stadtholder, and he became angry. The States-General at large, with Barneveldt to speak for them, were Remonstrant; the states of Holland were Counter-Remonstrant; and one of the questions thus at issue was how far the power of the general government outweighed that of a particular state. … By steps here impossible to follow, Maurice destroyed the ascendency of Barneveldt, and the reports that the old statesman was playing into the hands of Spain grew more and more current. The magistrates of the Arminian persuasion found themselves depending for protection on the Waartgelders, a sort of burgher militia, who endeavoured to keep the peace between the furious mobs who struggled on either side. Accusations flew about freely that now Maurice, now Barneveldt wanted the sovereignty. England favoured the former; and after Henri IV. was dead, French support little availed the latter, but rather did him harm. Maurice did not scruple to raise the popular cry that there were two factions in Holland, for Orange or for Spain, though he must have known that there never had been a more steady foe of Spain than the old statesman. The public, however, preferred the general to the statesman, and bit by bit Maurice succeeded in exchanging Remonstrant magistrates for Counter-Remonstrant, or, as Barneveldt explained the matter to Sir Dudley Carleton, who had become ambassador from England, Puritan for double Puritan. … Sunday, the 17th of July, 1617, Uytenbogen preached against the assembly of a national synod, knowing well that it would only confirm and narrow the cruel doctrine. Maurice, who was bent on the synod came out in a rage. … {2278} Barneveldt on this moved the States-General to refuse their consent to the synod as inconsistent with their laws. This was carried by a majority, and was called the Sharp Resolve. … The High Council by a majority of one set aside the Sharp Resolve, and decided for the synod. Barneveldt had a severe illness, during which Maurice's influence made progress, assisted by detestable accusations that the Advocate was in league with the Spaniards. At last Maurice mastered Utrecht, hitherto the chief hold of Arminianism. He disbanded the Waartgelders, and when the States-General came together in the summer of 1618, he had all prepared for sweeping his adversaries from his path. On the 29th of August, as Barneveldt was going to take his place at the States-General, he was told by a chamberlain that the Prince wished to speak with him, and in Maurice's ante-room was arrested by a lieutenant of the guard and locked up. In exactly the same manner was arrested his friend and supporter Pensionary Rambolt Hoogenboets, who had protested against the decree by which the High Council reversed that of the States-General, and Hugo Van Groot, or, as he called himself, Hugo Grotius, one of the greatest scholars who ever lived, especially in jurisprudence, and a strong adherent of the Advocate. … The synod met at Dordrecht [or Dort] in January, 1619, and lasted till April. The Calvinists carried the day completely, and Arminians were declared heretics, schismatics, incapable of preaching, or of acting as professors or schoolmasters, unless they signed the Heidelberg Catechism and Netherland Confession, which laid down the hard-and-fast doctrine that predestination excluded all free will on man's part, but divided the human race into vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy, without power on their own part to reverse the doom. … The trial of Barneveldt was going on at the same time with the Synod of Dordrecht after he had been many months in prison. Twenty-four commissioners were appointed, twelve from Holland, and two from each of the other states, and most of them were personal enemies of the prisoner. Before them he was examined day by day for three months, without any indictment; no witnesses, no counsel on either side; nor was he permitted pen and ink to prepare his defence, nor the use of his books and papers." Barneveldt and his family protested against the flagrant injustice and illegality of the so-called trial, but refused to sue for pardon, which Maurice was determined they should do. "It was submission that he wanted, not life"; but as the submission was not yielded he coldly exacted the life. Barneveldt was condemned and sentenced to be beheaded by the sword. The sentence was executed on the same day it was pronounced, May 12, 1619. Grotius was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, but made his escape, by the contrivance of his wife, in 1621.

C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, series 6, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: J. L. Motley, Life and Death of John of Barneveld, chapters 14-22 (volume 2).

J. Arminius, Works, etc.; edited by Nichols, volume 1.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D.1608-1620. Residence of the exiled Independents who afterwards founded Plymouth Colony in New England.

See INDEPENDENTS: A. D. 1604-1617.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1609. The founding of the Bank of Amsterdam.

See MONEY AND BANKING: 17TH CENTURY.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1609. Henry Hudson's voyage of exploration.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1609.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1610-1614. Possession taken of New Netherland (New York).

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1621. Incorporation of the Dutch West India Company.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1621-1646.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1621-1633. End of the Twelve Years Truce. Renewal of war. Death of Prince Maurice. Reversion of the sovereignty of the Spanish Provinces to the king of Spain.

"In 1621, the twelve years' truce being expired, the King of Spain and the Archdukes offered to renew it, on the condition that the States would acknowledge their ancient sovereigns, one of whom, the Archduke Albert, died this year. Even if the States had been inclined to negotiate, the will of Maurice was in the ascendant, and the war was renewed. The Dutch, it is true, were now entirely insulated. James of England was making overtures to Spain and being cajoled. France, who had wished to save Barneveldt, was unfriendly in consequence of the manner in which her intercession had been treated. The Dutch party which was opposed to Maurice was exasperated, and the great counsellor was no more there to advise his country in its emergencies. The safety of Holland lay in the fact that the wars of religion were being waged on a wider and more distant field, for a larger stake, and with larger armies. Not content with murdering Barneveldt, Maurice took care to ruin his family. But at last, and just before his death in 1625, Maurice, in the bitterness of disappointment, said, 'As long as the old rascal was alive, we had counsels and money; now we can find neither one nor the other.' … The memory of Barneveldt was avenged, even though his reputation has not been rehabilitated. Frederic Henry, half-brother of Maurice, was at once made Captain and Admiral-General of the States, and soon after Stadtholder. … Very speedily the controversy which had threatened to tear Holland asunder was silenced by mutual consent, except in synods and presbyteries. In a few years, Holland became, as far as the government was concerned, the most tolerant country in the world, the asylum of those whom bigotry hunted from their native land. Hence it became the favourite abode of those wealthy and enterprising Jews, who greatly increased its wealth by aiding its external and internal commerce."

J. E. T. Rogers, Story of Holland, chapter 26.

"Marquis Spinola commenced the campaign by the siege of. Bergen-op-Zoom, with a considerable Spanish army, in 1622, but Maurice was enabled to meet him with the united forces of Mansfeld, Brunswick [see GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623], and his own, and obliged the Marquis to raise the siege. He afterwards encountered Don Gonsalvo de Cordova, who endeavoured to stay their passage into Germany with a Spanish force near Fleurus; but he also was defeated. After this, however, Prince Maurice could effect nothing considerable, but maintained his ground solely by acting on the defensive during the entire year 1623. … He could not prevent the capture [by Spinola] of Breda, one of the strongest fortifications of the Low Countries. … The mortification at being unable to relieve this place during a long blockade of six months preyed upon the mind of Prince Maurice, whose health had already begun to give way. … An access of fever obliged him to quit the field and withdraw to the Hague, where he died in 1625, at the age of 58 years."

Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years' War: Maurice of Orange-Nassau, page 47.

{2279}

The new Stadtholder, Prince Frederic Henry, made every effort to raise the siege of Breda, but without success, and the place was surrendered (June 2, 1625) to the Spaniards. In the next year little was accomplished on either side; but in 1627 the Prince took Grol, after a siege of less than one month. In 1628 the Dutch Admiral Piet Heyn captured one of the Spanish silver-fleets, with a cargo, largely pure silver, valued at 12,000,000 florins. In 1629 the king of Spain and the Archduchess made overtures of peace, with offers of a renewed truce for 24 years. "But no sooner did the negotiations become public than they encountered general and violent opposition," especially from the West India Company, which found the war profitable, and from the ministers of the church. At the same time the operations of the war assumed more activity. The Prince laid siege to Bois-le-Duc, a Brabant town deemed impregnable, and the Spaniards, to draw him away, invaded Guelderland, and captured Amersfoort, near Utrecht. They laid waste the country, and were compelled to retire, without interrupting the siege of Bois-le-Duc, which presently was surrendered. In 1631 the Prince undertook the siege of Dunkirk, which had long been a rendezvous of pirates, troublesome to the commerce of all the surrounding nations; but on the approach of a Spanish relieving force, the deputies of the States, who had authority over the commander, required him to relinquish the undertaking. In 1632, the Prince achieved a great success, in the siege and reduction of Maestricht, which he accomplished, notwithstanding his lines were attacked by a Spanish army of 24,000 men, and by an army from Germany, under the Imperial general Pappenheim, who brought 16,000 men to assist in raising the siege. In the face of these two armies, Maestricht was forced to capitulate, and the fall of Limburg followed. Peace negotiations were reopened the same year, but came to nothing, and they were followed shortly by the death of the Archduchess Isabella. "At her death, the Netherlands, in pursuance of the terms of the surrender made by Philip II., reverted to the King of Spain, who placed the government, after it had been administered a short time by a commission, in the hands of the Marquis of Aitona, commander-in-chief of the army, until the arrival of his brother Ferdinand, cardinal and archbishop of Toledo [known as 'the Cardinal Infant'], whom he had, during the lifetime of the Archduchess, appointed her successor."

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 3, chapter 6 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: C. R. Markham, The Fighting Veres, part 2, chapter 4.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1623. The massacre of Amboyna.

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1624-1661. Conquests in Brazil and their loss.

See BRAZIL: A. D. 1510-1661.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1625. The Protestant alliance in the Thirty Years War.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1635. Alliance with France against Spain and Austria.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638. The Cardinal Infant in the government of the Spanish Provinces. His campaigns against the Dutch and French. Invasion of France. Dutch capture of Breda.

In 1635, the Archduchess Isabella having recently died, it was thought expedient in Spain "that a member of the royal family should be intrusted with the administration of the Netherlands [Spanish Provinces]. This appointment was accordingly conferred on the Cardinal Infant [Ferdinand, son of Philip III.], who was at that time in Italy, where he had collected a considerable army. With this force, amounting to about 12,000 men, he had passed in the preceding year through Germany, on his route to the Netherlands, and, having formed a junction with the Imperialists, under the King of Hungary, he greatly contributed to the victory gained over the Swedes and German Protestants, at Nordlingen. …

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

The Cardinal Infant entered on the civil and military government of the Spanish Netherlands nearly at the time when the seizure of the Elector of Treves had called forth from France an open declaration of war. By uniting the newly raised troops which he had brought with him from Italy to the veteran legions of the provinces, he found himself at the head of a considerable military force. At the same time, an army of 20,000 French was assembled under the inspection of their king at Amiens, and was intrusted to Chatillon, and Mareschal Brezé the brother-in-law of Richelieu. … It was intended, however, that this army should form a junction with the Dutch at Maestricht, after which the troops of both nations should be placed under the orders of Frederic Henry, Prince of Orange, who had inherited all the military talents of his ancestors. In order to counteract this movement, the Cardinal Infant separated his army into two divisions. One was ordered to confront the Dutch, and the other, under Prince Thomas of Savoy, marched to oppose the progress of the French. This latter division of the Spaniards encountered the enemy at Avein, in the territory of Liege; but though it had taken up a favourable position, it was totally defeated, and forced to retreat to Namur. The French army then continued its march with little farther interruption, and effected its intended union with the Dutch in the neighbourhood of Maestricht. After this junction, the Prince of Orange assumed the command of the allied army, which now stormed and sacked Tillemont, where great cruelties were committed. … The union of the two armies spread terror throughout the Spanish Netherlands, and the outrages practised at Tillemont gave the Catholics a horror at the French name and alliance. … The Flemings, forgetting their late discontents with the Spanish government, now made the utmost efforts against their invaders. … The Spanish prince … contrived to elude a general engagement. … His opponents … were obliged to employ their arms in besieging towns. It was believed for some time that they intended to invest Brussels, but the storm fell on Louvain." The Emperor now sent from Germany a force of 18,000 men, under Piccolomini, "to the succour of the Cardinal Infant. {2280} The slowness of all the operations of the Prince of Orange afforded sufficient time for these auxiliaries to cut off the French supplies of provisions, and advance to the relief of Louvain. On the intelligence of their approach, the half-famished French abandoned the siege, and, after suffering severely in their retreat, retired to recruit at Ruremonde. The Dutch afforded them no assistance, and showed them but little sympathy in their disasters. Though the Dutch hated Spain, they were jealous of France, and dreaded an increase of its power in the Netherlands. … Mareschals Chatillon and Brezé, who were thus in a great measure the victims of the policy of their allies, were under the necessity of leading back beyond the Meuse, to Nimeguen, the wretched remains of their army, now reduced to 9,000 men. … After the departure of the French, the exertions of the Prince of Orange were limited, during this season, to an attempt for the recovery of the strong fortress of Skink, which had recently been reduced by the Spaniards. The Cardinal Infant, availing himself of the opportunity thus presented to him, quickly regained, by aid of the Austrian reinforcements, his superiority in the field. He took several fortresses from the Dutch, and sent to the frontiers of France detachments which levied contributions over great part of Picardy and Champagne. … Encouraged by these successes, Olivarez [the Spanish minister] redoubled his exertions, and now boldly planned invasions of France from three different quarters"—to enter Picardy on the north, Burgundy on the east, and Guienne at the south. "Of all these expeditions, the most successful, at least for a time, was the invasion of Picardy, which, indeed, had nearly proved fatal to the French monarchy. By orders of the Cardinal Infant, his generals, Prince Thomas of Savoy, Piccolomini, and John de Vert, or Wert, … began their march at the head of an army which exceeded 30,000 men, and was particularly strong in cavalry. … No interruption being … offered by the Dutch, the Spanish generals entered Picardy [1636], and seized almost without resistance on La Capelle and Catelet, which the French ministry expected would have occupied their arms for some months. The Count de Soissons, who was already thinking more of his plots against Richelieu than the defence of his country, did nothing to arrest the progress of the Spaniards, till they arrived at the Somme," and there but little. They forced the passage of the river with slight difficulty, and "occupied Roye, to the south of the Somme, on the river Oise; and having thus obtained an entrance into France, spread themselves over the whole country lying between these rivers. The smoke of the villages to which they set fire was seen from the heights in the vicinity of Paris; and such in that capital was the consternation consequent on these events that it seems probable, had the Spanish generals marched straight on Paris, the city would have fallen into their hands." But Prince Thomas was not bold enough for the exploit, and prudently "receded with his army to form the siege of Corbie. This town presented no great resistance to his arms, but the time occupied by its capture allowed the Parisians to recover from their consternation, and to prepare the means of defence." They raised an army of 60,000 men, chiefly apprentices and artisans of the capital, before which Prince Thomas was obliged to retreat. "The French quickly recovered all those fortified places in Picardy which had been previously lost by the incapacity, or, as Richelieu alleged, by the treachery of their governors. But they could not prevent the Spaniards from plundering and desolating the country as they retired. … The Cardinal Infant was obliged to remain on the defensive for some time after his retreat from Picardy to the Netherlands, which were anew invaded by a French force, under the Cardinal La Valette, a younger son of the Duke d'Epernon. But even while restricting his operations to defence, the Infant could not prevent the capture by the French of Ivry and Landreci in Hainault. While opposing the enemy in that quarter, he received intelligence of an unexpected attempt on Breda by the Dutch [1637]. He immediately hastened to its relief; but the Prince of Orange having rapidly collected 6,000 or 7,000 peasants, whom he had employed in forming intrenchments and drawing lines of circumvallation, was so well fortified on the arrival of the Cardinal Infant, who had crossed the Scheldt at Antwerp, and approached with not fewer than 25,000 men, that that Prince, in despair of forcing the enemy's camp, or in any way succouring Breda, marched towards Guelderland. In that province he took Venlo and Ruremonde; but Breda, as he had anticipated, surrendered to the Dutch after a siege of nine weeks. … Its capture greatly relieved the Dutch in Brabant, who now, for many years, had been checked by an enemy in the heart of their territories. … Early in the year 1638, the Infant resumed offensive operations, and again rendered himself formidable to his enemies. He frustrated the attempts which the Dutch had concerted against Antwerp. … In person he beat off the army of the Prince of Orange, who had invested Gueldres; and, about the same time, his active generals; Prince Thomas of Savoy and Piccolomini, compelled the French to raise the siege of St. Omer."

J. Dunlop, Memoirs of Spain from 1621 to 1700, volume 1, chapter 4.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1643. Invasion of France by the Spaniards and their defeat at Rocroi. Loss of Thionville and the line of the Moselle.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1642-1643; and 1643.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1645-1646. French campaign in Flanders, under Orleans and Enghien (Conde). Siege and capture of Dunkirk.

"In 1645, Orleans led the [French] army into Flanders, and began the campaign with the capture of Mardyck. A few weeks of leisurely siege resulted in the conquest of some towns, and by the first of September Gaston sought rest at the Court. As it was now well towards the end of the season, the Hollanders were at last ready to cooperate, and they joined the French under Gassion and Rantzau. But the allied armies did little except march and countermarch, and at the end of the year the Spaniards surprised the French garrison at Mardyck and retook the only place of importance they had lost. … Gaston was, however, well content even with the moderate glory of such warfare. In 1646 he commanded an army of 35,000 men, one portion of which was led by Enghien himself. The Hollanders were under arms unusually early, but they atoned for this by accomplishing nothing. The French laid siege to Courtrai, which in due time surrendered, and they then spent three weeks in a vigorous siege of Mardyck. {2281} This place was finally captured for the second time in fourteen months. It was now late in August, and Orleans was ready to rest from a campaign which had lasted three months. … By the departure of Gaston the Duke of Enghien was left free to attempt some important movement, and his thoughts turned upon the capture of the city of Dunkirk. Dunkirk was situated on the shore of the North Sea, in a position that made it alike important and formidable to commerce. … Its harbor leading to a canal in the city where a fleet might safely enter, and its position near the shores of France and the British Channel, had rendered it a frequent retreat for pirates. The cruisers that captured the ships of the merchants of Havre and Dieppe, or made plundering expeditions along the shores of Picardy and Normandy, found safe refuge in the harbor of Dunkirk. Its name was odious through northern France, alike to the shipper and the resident of the towns along the coast. The ravages of the pirates of Dunkirk are said to have cost France as much as a million a year. … The position of Dunkirk was such that it seemed to defy attack, and the strangeness and wildness of its approaches added terror to its name. It was surrounded by vast plains of sand, far over which often spread the waters of the North Sea, and its name was said to signify the church of the dunes. Upon them the fury of the storms often worked strange changes. What had seemed solid land would be swallowed up in some tempest. What had been part of the ocean would be left so that men and wagons could pass over what the day before had been as inaccessible as the Straits of Dover. An army attempting a siege would find itself on these wild dunes far removed from any places for supplies, and exposed to the utmost severity of storm and weather. Tents could hardly be pitched, and the changing sands would threaten the troops with destruction. The city was, moreover, garrisoned by 3,000 soldiers, and by 3,000 of the citizens and 2,000 sailors. … The ardor of Enghien was increased by these difficulties, and he believed that with skill and vigor the perils of a siege could be overcome. This plan met the warm approval of Mazarin. … Enghien advanced with his army of about 15,000 men, and on the 10th of September the siege began. It was necessary to prevent supplies being received by sea. Tromp, excited to hearty admiration of the genius of the young general, sailed with ten ships into the harbor, and cut off communications. Enghien, in the meantime, was pressing the circumvallation of the city with the utmost vigor. … Half fed, wet, sleepless, the men worked on, inspired by the zeal of their leader. Piccolomini attempted to relieve the city, but he could not force Enghien's entrenchments, except by risking a pitched battle, and that he did not dare to venture. Mines were now carried under the city by the besiegers, and a great explosion made a breach in the wall. The French and Spanish met, but the smoke and confusion were so terrible that both sides at last fell back in disorder. The French finally discovered that the advantage was really theirs, and held the position. Nothing now remained but a final and bloody assault, but Leyde did not think that honor required him to await this. He agreed that if he did not receive succor by the 10th of October, the city should be surrendered. Piccolomini dared not risk the last army in Flanders in an assault on Enghien's entrenchments, and, on October 11th, the Spanish troops evacuated the town. A siege of three weeks had conquered obstacles of man and nature, and destroyed the scourge of French commerce."

J. B. Perkins, France under [Richelieu and] Mazarin, chapter 8 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon, Life of Condé, chapter 2.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1646-1648. Final Negotiation of Peace between Spain and the United Provinces.

"The late campaign had been so unfortunate [to the Spaniards] that they felt their only possibility of obtaining reasonable terms, or of continuing the war with the hope of a change in fortune, was to break the alliance between Holland and France. A long debt of gratitude, assistance rendered in the struggle with Spain when assistance was valuable, the treaty of 1635 renewed in 1644, forbade Holland making a peace, except jointly with France. On the other hand, the States-General were weary of war, and jealous of the power and ambition of the French. … This disposition was skilfully fostered by the Spanish envoys. Pau and Knuyt, plenipotentiaries from Holland to the Congress at Münster [where, in part, the negotiations of the Peace of Westphalia were in progress—see GERMANY: A. D. 1648], were gained to the Spanish interest, as Mazarin claimed, by the promise to each of 100,000 crowns. But, apart from bribes, the Spanish used Mazarin's own plans to alarm the Hollanders. … It was intimated to the Hollanders that France was about to make a separate peace, that the Spanish Netherlands were to be given her, and that perhaps with the hand of the infanta might be transferred what claims Spain still made on the allegiance of the United Provinces. The French protested in vain they had never thought of making any treaty unless Holland joined, and that the proposed marriage of Louis with the infanta had been idle talk, suggested by the Spanish for the purpose of alarming the States-General. The Hollanders were suspicious, and they became still more eager for peace. … In the spring of 1646, seventy-one proposed articles had been submitted to the Spanish for their consideration. The French made repeated protests against these steps, but the States-General insisted that they were only acting with such celerity as should enable them to have the terms of their treaty adjusted as soon as those of the French. The successes of 1646 and the capture of Dunkirk quickened the desires of the United Provinces for a treaty with their ancient enemy. … In December, 1646, articles were signed between Spain and Holland, to be inserted in the treaty of Münster, when that should be settled upon, though the States-General still declared that no peace should be made unless the terms were approved by France. Active hostilities were again commenced in 1647, but little progress was made in Flanders during this campaign. Though the Hollanders had not actually made peace with Spain, they gave the French no aid. … On January 30, 1648, the treaty was at last signed. 'One would think,' wrote Mazarin, 'that for eighty years France had been warring with the provinces, and Spain had been protecting them. They have stained their reputation with a shameful blemish.' {2282} It was eighty years since William of Orange had issued his proclamation inviting all the Netherlands to take up arms 'to oppose the violent tyranny of the Spaniards.' Unlike the truce of 1609, a formal and final peace was now made. The United Provinces were acknowledged as free and sovereign states. At the time of the truce the Spaniards had only treated with them 'in quality of, and as holding them for independent provinces.' By a provision which had increased the eagerness for peace of the burghers and merchants of the United Provinces, it was agreed that the Escaut [Scheldt] should be closed. The wealth and commerce of Antwerp were thus sacrificed for the benefit of Amsterdam. The trade with the Indies was divided between the two countries. Numerous commercial advantages were secured and certain additional territory was ceded to the States-General."

J. B. Perkins, France under [Richelieu and] Mazarin, chapter 8 (volume 1).

"It had … become a settled conviction of Holland that a barrier of Spanish territory between the United Provinces and France was necessary as a safeguard against the latter. But the idea of fighting to maintain that barrier had not yet arisen, though fighting was the outcome of the doctrine. All that the United Provinces now did, or could do, was simply to back out of the war with Spain, sit still, and look passively upon the conflict between her and France for possession of the barrier, until it should please the two belligerents to make peace."

J. Geddes, History of the Administration of John De Witt, book 2, chapter 1, section 1 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1647-1648. The Spanish war with France. Siege and Battle of Lens.

"While Condé was at the head of the army of the Netherlands, it at least suffered no disaster; but, while he was affording the enemy a triumph in Spain [by his failure at Lerida,—the army which he left behind him was equally unfortunate].

See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646.

As he had taken some regiments with him to Spain, it did not exceed 16,000 men; and in 1647 was commanded by the two marshals, Gassion and Rantzau," who exercised the command on alternate days. Both were brave and skilful officers, but they were hostile to one another, and Rantzau was, unfortunately, a drunkard. "The Spanish army had been raised to 22,000 men, and besides being superior in numbers to them, was now under the command of a singularly active leader, the Archduke Leopold. He took town after town before their face; and towards the end of June laid siege to Landrecies. The danger of so important a place stimulated Mazarin to send some strong battalions, including the royal guards, to reinforce the army: and the two marshals made skilful dispositions to surprise the Spanish camp. By a night march of great rapidity, they reached the neighbourhood of the enemy without their presence being suspected; but the next morning, when the attack was to be made, it was Rantzau's turn to command; and he was too helplessly drunk to give the necessary orders. Before he had recovered his consciousness daylight had revealed his danger to the archduke, and he had taken up a position in which he could give battle with advantage. Greatly mortified, the French were forced to draw off, and leave Landrecies to its fate. As some apparent set-off to their losses, they succeeded in taking Dixmude, and one or two other unimportant towns, and were besieging Lens, when Gassion was killed; and though, a few days afterwards, that town was taken, its capture made but small amends. … Though the war was almost at an end in Germany, Turenne was still in that country; and, therefore, the next year there was no one who could be sent to replace Gassion but Condé and Grammont, who fortunately for the prince, was his almost inseparable comrade and adviser. … Though 16,000 men had been thought enough for Gassion and Rantzau, 30,000 were now collected to enable Condé to make a more successful campaign. The archduke had received no reinforcements, and had now only 18,000 men to make head against him; yet with this greatly inferior force he, for a while, balanced Condé's successes; losing Ypres, it is true, but taking Courtrai and Furnes, and defeating and almost annihilating a division with which the prince had detached Rantzau to make an attempt upon Ostend. At last, in the middle of August, he laid siege to Lens, the capture of which had, as we have already mentioned, been the last exploit of the French army in the preceding campaign, and which was now retaken without the garrison making the slightest effort at resistance. But, just as the first intelligence of his having sat down before it reached Condé, he was joined by the Count d'Erlach with a reinforcement of 5,000 men from the German army; and he resolved to march against the archduke in the hope of saving" the place. "He arrived in sight of the town on the 20th of August, a few hours after it had surrendered; and he found the archduke's victorious army in a position which, eager as he was for battle, he could not venture to attack. For Leopold had 18,000 men under arms, and the force that Condé had been able to bring with him did not exceed 14,000, with 18 guns. For the first time in his life he decided on retreating;" but early in the retreat his army was thrown into disorder by an attack from the archduke's cavalry, commanded by General Beck. "All was nearly lost, when Grammont turned the fortune of the day. He was in the van, but the moment that he learnt what was taking place behind him, he halted the advanced guard, and leading it back towards the now triumphant enemy, gave time for those regiments which had been driven in to rally behind the firm line which he presented. … It soon came to be a contest of hard fighting, unvaried by manœuvres on either side; and in hard fighting no troops could stand before those who might be lead by Condé. … At last victory declared for him in every part of his line. He had sustained a heavy loss himself, but less than that of the enemy, who left 3,000 of their number slain upon the field; while 5,000 prisoners, among whom was Beck himself, struck down by a mortal wound, and nearly all their artillery and baggage, attested the reality and greatness of his triumph."

C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, chapter 10 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Civil Wars, part 1, pages 149-152.

{2283}

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1647-1650. Suspension of the Stadtholdership. Supremacy of the States of Holland.

The fourth stadtholder, William II., who succeeded his father, Frederick Henry, in 1647, "was young and enterprising, and not at all disposed to follow the pacific example of his father. … His attempt at a coup d'état only prepared the way for an interregnum. … He was brother-in-law to the Elector of Brandenburg … and son-in-law to Charles I. of England and Henrietta Maria, the sister of Louis XIII. … The proud descendant of the Stuarts, the Princess Mary, who had been married to him when hardly more than a child, thought it beneath her not to be the wife of a sovereign, and encouraged her husband not to be satisfied to remain merely 'the official of a republic.' Thus encouraged, the son of Frederick Henry cherished the secret purpose of transforming the elective stadtholdership into an hereditary monarchy. … He needed supreme authority to enable him to render assistance to Charles I. … Finding in the opposition of the States an insurmountable obstacle to his wish of intervention, he sought the support of France, … and was now ready to come to an understanding with Mazarin to break the treaty of Munster and wrest the Netherlands from Spain. Mazarin promised in return to help him to assert his authority over the States. … But if William desired war, the United Provinces, and in particular the province of Holland, could not dispense with peace. … The States of Holland … fixed the period for the disbanding of the twenty-nine companies whose dismissal had been promised to them. After twelve days of useless deliberations they issued definite orders to that effect. The step had been provoked, but it was precipitate and might give rise to a legal contest as to their competency. The Prince of Orange, therefore, eager to hasten a struggle from which he expected an easy victory, chose to consider the resolution of the States of Holland as a signal for the rupture of the Union, and the very next day solemnly demanded reparation from the States-General, who in their turn issued a counter order. The Prince made skilful use of the rivalry of power between the two assemblies to obtain for himself extraordinary powers which were contrary to the laws of the Confederation. By the terms of the resolution, which was passed by only four provinces, of which two were represented by but one deputy each, he was authorised to take all measures necessary for the maintenance of order and peace, and particularly for the preservation of the Union. 'The States-General consequently commissioned him to visit the town councils of Holland, accompanied by six members of the States-General and of the Council of State, with all the pomp of a military escort, including a large number of officers. He was charged to address them with remonstrances and threats intended to intimidate the provincial States.' This was the first act of the coup d'état that he had prepared, and his mistake was quickly shown him." The Prince gained nothing by his visitation of the towns. At Amsterdam he was not permitted to enter the place with his following, and he returned to the Hague especially enraged against that bold and independent city. He planned an expedition to take it by surprise; but the citizens got timely warning and his scheme was baffled. He had succeeded, however, in arresting and imprisoning six of the most influential deputies of the Assembly of Holland, and his attitude was formidable enough to extort some concessions from the popular party, by way of compromise. A state of suspicious quiet was restored for the time, which William improved by renewing negotiations for a secret treaty with France. "Arrogating to himself already the right to dispose as he pleased of the republic, he signed a convention with Count d'Estrades, whom he had summoned to the Hague. By this the King of France and the Prince of Orange engaged themselves 'to attack conjointly the Netherlands on May 1, 1651, with an army of 20,000 foot and 10,000 horse, to break at the same time with Cromwell, to re-establish Charles II. as King of England, and to make no treaty with Spain excepting in concert with each other.' The Prince of Orange guaranteed a fleet of 50 vessels besides the land contingent, and in return for his co-operation was promised the absolute possession of the city of Antwerp and the Duchy of Brabant or Marquisate of the Holy Roman Empire. William thus interested France in the success of his cause by making ready to resume the war with Spain, and calculated, as he told his confidants, on profiting by her assistance to disperse the cabal opposed to him. … The internal pacification amounted then to no more than a truce, when three months later the Prince of Orange, having over-fatigued and heated himself in the chase, was seized with small-pox, of which in a few days he died. He was thus carried off at the age of 24, in the full force and flower of his age, leaving only one son, born a week after his father's death. … His attempt at a coup d'état was destined to press heavily and long upon the fate of the posthumous son, who had to wait 22 years before succeeding to his ancestral functions. It closed the succession to him for many years, by making the stadtholdership a standing menace to the public freedom. … The son of William II., an orphan before his birth, and named William like his father, seemed destined to succeed to little more than the paternal name. … Three days after the death of William II., the former deputies, whom he had treated as state prisoners and deprived of all their offices, were recalled to take their seats in the Assembly. At the same time the provincial Town Councils assumed the power of nominating their own magistrates, which had almost always been left to the pleasure of the Stadtholder, and thus obtained the full enjoyment of municipal freedom. The States of Holland, on their side, grasped the authority hitherto exercised in their province by the Prince of Orange, and claimed successively all the rights of sovereignty. The States of Zealand … exhibited the same eagerness to free themselves from all subjection. … Thus, before declaring the stadtholdership vacant, the office was deprived of its prerogatives. To complete this transformation of the government, the States of Holland took the initiative in summoning to the Hague a great assembly of the Confederation, which met at the beginning of the year 1651. … The congress was called upon to decide between two forms of constitution. The question was whether the United Provinces should be a republic governed by the States-General, or whether the government should belong to the States of each province, with only a reservation in favour of the obligations imposed by the Act of Union. Was each province to be sovereign in itself, or subject to the federal power?" The result was a suspension and practical abolition of the stadtholdership. "Freed from the counterbalancing power of the Stadtholder, Holland to a great extent absorbed the federal power, and was the gainer by all that that power lost. … {2284} The States of Holland, … destined henceforward to be the principal instrument of government of the republic, was composed partly of nobles and partly of deputies from the towns. … The Grand Pensionary was the minister of the States of Holland. He was appointed for five years, and represented them in the States-General. … Called upon by the vacancy in the stadtholdership to the government of the United Provinces, without any legal power of enforcing obedience, Holland required a statesman who could secure this political supremacy and use it for her benefit. The nomination of John de Witt as Grand Pensionary placed at her service one of the youngest members of the assembly."

A. L. Pontalis, John de Witt, chapters 1-2 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1648. Still held to form a part of the Empire.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1648-1665. Prosperity and pre-eminence of the Dutch Republic. The causes.

"That this little patch of earth, a bog rescued from the waters, warred on ever by man and by the elements, without natural advantages except those of contact with the sea, should in the middle of the seventeenth century have become the commercial centre of Europe, is one of the phenomena of history. But in the explanation of this phenomenon history has one of its most instructive lessons. Philip II. said of Holland, 'that it was the country nearest to hell.' Well might he express such an opinion. He had buried around the walls of its cities more than three hundred thousand Spanish soldiers, and had spent in the attempt at its subjugation more than two hundred million ducats. This fact alone would account for his abhorrence, but, in addition, the republic was in its every feature opposed to the ideal country of a bigot and a despot. The first element which contributed to its wealth, as well as to the vast increase of its population, was its religious toleration. … This, of course, was as incomprehensible to a Spanish Catholic as it was to a High-Churchman or to a Presbyterian in England. That Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Jews, and Catholics should all be permitted to live under the same government seemed to the rest of Europe like flying in the face of Providence. Critics at this time occasionally said that the Hollanders cared nothing for religion; that with them theology was of less account than commerce. To taunts like these no reply was needed by men who could point to their record of eighty years of war. This war had been fought for liberty of conscience, but more than all, as the greater includes the less, for civil liberty. During its continuance, and at every crisis, Catholics had stood side by side with Protestants to defend their country, as they had done in England when the Spanish Armada appeared upon her coast. It would have been a strange reward for their fidelity to subject them, as Elizabeth did, to a relentless persecution, upon the pretext that they were dangerous to the State. In addition to the toleration, there were other causes leading to the marvellous prosperity of the republic, which are of particular interest to Americans. In 1659, Samuel Lamb, a prominent and far-seeing London merchant, published a pamphlet, in the form of a letter to Cromwell, urging the establishment of a bank in England similar to the one at Amsterdam. In this pamphlet, which Lord Somers thought worthy of preservation, the author gives the reasons, as they occurred to him, which accounted for the vast superiority of Holland over the rest of Europe as a commercial nation. … As the foundation of a bank for England was the subject of the letter, the author naturally lays particular stress upon that factor, but the other causes which he enumerates as explaining the great trade of the republic are the following: First. The statesmen sitting at the helm in Holland are many of them merchants, bred to trade from their youth, improved by foreign travel, and acquainted with all the necessities of commerce. Hence, their laws and treaties are framed with wisdom. Second. In Holland when a merchant dies, his property is equally divided among his children, and the business is continued and expanded, with all its traditions and inherited experience. In England, on the contrary, the property goes to the eldest son, who often sets up for a country gentleman, squanders his patrimony, and neglects the business by which his father had become enriched. Third. The honesty of the Hollanders in their manufacturing and commercial dealings. When goods are made up in Holland, they sell everywhere without question, for the purchaser knows that they are exactly as represented in quality, weight, and measure. Not so with England's goods. Our manufacturers are so given to fraud and adulteration as to bring their commodities into disgrace abroad. 'And so the Dutch have the pre-eminence in the sale of their manufactures before us, by their true making, to their very files and needles.' Fourth. The care and vigilance of the government in the laying of impositions so as to encourage their own manufactures; the skill and rapidity with which they are changed to meet the shifting wants of trade; the encouragement given by ample rewards from the public treasury for useful inventions and improvements; and the promotion of men to office for services and not for favor or sinister ends. Such were the causes of the commercial supremacy of the Dutch as they appeared to an English merchant of the time, and all modern investigations support his view. … Sir Joshua [Josiah] Child, writing a few years later ['A New Discourse of Trade, page 2, and after—1665], gives a fuller explanation of the great prosperity of the Netherland Republic. He evidently had Lamb's pamphlet before him, for he enumerates all the causes set forth by his predecessor. In addition, he gives several others, as to some of which we shall see more hereafter. Among these are the general education of the people, including the women, religious toleration, care of the poor, low custom duties and high excise, registration of titles to real estate, low interest, the laws permitting the assignment of debts, and the judicial system under which controversies between merchants can be decided at one fortieth part of the expense in England. … Probably, no body of men governing a state were ever more enlightened and better acquainted with the necessities of legislation than were these burghers, merchants, and manufacturers who for two centuries gave laws to Holland. It was largely due to the intelligence displayed by these men that the republic, during the continuance of its war, was enabled to support a burden of taxation such as the world has rarely seen before or since. {2285} The internal taxes seem appalling. Rents were taxed twenty-five per cent.; on all sales of real estate two and a half per cent. were levied, and on all collateral inheritances five per cent. On beer, wine, meat, salt, spirits, and all articles of luxury, the tax was one hundred per cent., and on some articles this was doubled. But this was only the internal taxation, in the way of excise duties, which were levied on everyone, natives and foreigners alike. In regard to foreign commodities, which the republic needed for its support, the system was very different. Upon them there was imposed only a nominal duty of one per cent., while wool, the great staple for the manufacturers, was admitted free. Here the statesmen of the republic showed the wisdom which placed them, as masters of political economy, at least two centuries in advance of their contemporaries."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, volume 2, pages 324-331.

ALSO IN: W. T. McCullagh, Industrial History of Free Nations, volume 2: The Dutch, chapter 12.

NETHERLANDS: (The United Provinces): A. D. 1651-1660. The rule of Holland, and her Grand Pensionary, John de Witt.

"The Republic had shaken off the domination of a person; it now fell under the domination of a single province. Holland was overwhelmingly preponderant in the federation. She possessed the richest, most populous, and most powerful towns. She contributed more than one-half of the whole federal taxation. She had the right of naming the ambassadors at Paris, Stockholm, and Vienna. The fact that the States General met on her territory—at the Hague—necessarily gave her additional influence and prestige. … With the Stadtholder's power that of the States General also, as representing the idea of centralisation, had largely disappeared. The Provincial Estates of Holland, therefore, under the title of 'Their High Mightinesses,' became the principal power—to such an extent, indeed, that the term 'Holland' had by the time of the Restoration [the English Restoration, A. D. 1660] become synonymous among foreign powers with the whole Republic. Their chief minister was called 'The Grand Pensionary,' and the office had been since 1653 filled by one of the most remarkable men of the time, John de Witt. John de Witt therefore represented, roughly speaking, the power of the merchant aristocracy of Holland, as opposed to the claims of the House of Orange, which were supported by the 'noblesse,' the army, the Calvinistic clergy, and the people below the governing class. Abroad the Orange family had the sympathy of monarchical Governments. Louis XIV. despised the Government of 'Messieurs les Marchands,' while Charles II., at once the uncle and the guardian of the young Prince of the house of Orange, the future William III. of England, and mindful of the scant courtesy which, to satisfy Cromwell, the Dutch had shown him in exile, was ever their bitter and unscrupulous foe. The empire of the Dutch Republic was purely commercial and colonial, and she held in this respect the same position relatively to the rest of Europe that England holds at the present day."

O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 9.

ALSO IN: J. Geddes, History of the Administration of John de Witt, volume 1.

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1652. Recovery of Dunkirk and Gravelines. Invasion of France. See FRANCE: A. D. 1652.

NETHERLANDS: (The United Provinces): A. D. 1652. First Settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1486-1806.

NETHERLANDS: (The United Provinces): A. D. 1652-1654. War with the English Commonwealth.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1652-1654.

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1653-1656. Campaigns of Condé in the service of Spain against France.

See FRANCE: A. D 1653-1656.

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1657-1658. England in alliance with France in the Franco-Spanish War. Loss of Dunkirk and Gravelines.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658.

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1659. Cessions of territory to France by the Treaty of the Pyrenees.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1664. The seizure of New Netherland by the English.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1665-1666. War with England renewed.

"A formal declaration of war between Holland and England took place in March, 1665. The English nation, jealous of the commercial prosperity of Holland, eagerly seconded the views of the king against that country, and in regard to the war a remarkable degree of union prevailed throughout Great Britain. Such, however, was not the case with the Dutch, who were very much divided in opinion, and had many reasons to be doubtful of the support of France. One of the grand objects of Charles II. was undoubtedly … to restore his nephew the Prince of Orange to all the power which had been held by his ancestors in the United Provinces. But between Holland and England there existed, besides numerous other most fertile causes of discord, unsettled claims, upon distant territories, rival colonies in remote parts of the world, maritime jealousy and constant commercial opposition. These were national motives for hostility, and affected a large body of the Dutch people. But, on the other hand, considerations of general interest were set aside by the political factions which divided the United Provinces, and which may be classed under the names of the Republican and the Monarchical parties. The Monarchical party was, of course, that which was attached to the interests of the House of Orange. … In the end of 1664, 130 Dutch merchantmen had been captured by England; acts of hostility had occurred in Guinea, at the Cape de Verd, [in New Netherland], and in the West Indies: but Louis [XIV. of France] had continued to avoid taking any active part against Great Britain, notwithstanding all the representations of De Witt, who on this occasion saw in France the natural ally of Holland. On the 13th of June [1665], however, a great naval engagement took place between the Dutch fleet, commanded by Opdam and Van Tromp, and the English fleet, commanded by the Duke of York and Prince Rupert. Opdam was defeated and killed; Van Tromp saved the remains of his fleet; and on the very same day a treaty was concluded between Arlington [the English minister] and an envoy of the Bishop of Munster, by which it was agreed that the warlike and restless prelate should invade the United Provinces with an army of 20,000 men, in consideration of sums of money to be paid by England. {2286} This treaty at once called Louis into action, and he notified to the Bishop of Munster that if he made any hostile movement against the States of Holland he would find the troops of France prepared to oppose him. This fact was announced to the States by D'Estrades on the 22nd of July, together with the information that the French monarch was about to send to their assistance a body of troops by the way of Flanders. … Still, however, Louis hung back in the execution of his purposes, till the aspect of affairs in the beginning of 1666 forced him to declare war against England, on the 26th of January in that year, according to the terms of his treaty with Holland. … The part that France took in the war was altogether insignificant, and served but little to free the Dutch from the danger in which they were placed. That nation itself made vast efforts to obtain a superiority at sea; and in the beginning of June, 1666, the Dutch fleet, commanded by De Ruyter and Van Tromp, encountered the English fleet, under Monk and Prince Rupert, and a battle which lasted for four days, with scarcely any intermission, took place. It would seem that some advantage was gained by the Dutch; but both fleets were tremendously shattered, and retired to the ports of their own country to refit. Shortly after, however, they again encountered, and one of the most tremendous naval engagements in history took place, in which the Dutch suffered a complete defeat; 20 of their first-rate men-of-war were captured or sunk; and three admirals, with 4,000 men, were killed on the part of the States. The French fleet could not come up in time to take part in the battle, and all that Louis did was to furnish De Witt with the means of repairing the losses of the States as rapidly as possible. The energy of the grand pensionary himself, however, effected much more than the slow and unwilling succour of the French king. With almost superhuman exertion new fleets were made ready and manned, while the grand pensionary amused the English ministers with the prospect of a speedy peace on their own terms; and at a moment when England was least prepared, De Ruyter and Cornelius de Witt appeared upon the coast, sailed up the Thames, attacked and took Sheerness, and destroyed a great number of ships of the line. A multitude of smaller vessels were burnt; and the consternation was so great throughout England, that a large quantity of stores and many ships were sunk and destroyed by order of the British authorities themselves, while De Ruyter ravaged the whole sea-coast from the mouth of the Thames to the Land's End. The negotiations for peace, which had commenced at Breda, were now carried on upon terms much more advantageous to Holland, and were speedily concluded; England, notwithstanding the naval glory she had gained, being fully as much tired of the war as the States themselves. A general treaty was signed on the 25th of July."

G. P. R. James, Life and Times of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 6.

"The thunder of the Dutch guns in the Medway and the Thames woke England to a bitter sense of its degradation. The dream of loyalty was roughly broken. 'Everybody now-a-days,' Pepys tells us, 'reflect upon Oliver and commend him: what brave things he did, and made all the neighbour princes fear him.' But Oliver's successor was coolly watching this shame and discontent of his people with the one aim of turning it to his own advantage."

J. R. Green, History of the English People, book 8, chapter 1 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: C. D. Yonge, History of the British Navy, volume 2, chapter 5.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1667. The claims and conquests of Louis XIV. The War of the Queen's Rights.

In 1660 Louis XIV., king of France, was married to the Infanta of Spain, Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV., who solemnly renounced at the time, for herself and her posterity, all rights to the Spanish crown. The insincerity and hollowness of the renunciation was proved terribly at a later time by the long "war of the Spanish succession." Meantime Louis discovered other pretended rights in his Spanish wife on which he might found claims for the satisfaction of his territorial greed. These rested on the fact that she was born of her father's first marriage, and that a customary right in certain provinces of the Spanish Netherlands gave daughters of a first marriage priority of inheritance over sons of a second marriage. At the same time, in the laws of Luxembourg and Franche-Comté, which admitted all children to the partition of an inheritance, he found pretext for claiming, on behalf of his wife, one fourth of the former and one third of the principality last named. Philip IV. of Spain died in September, 1665, leaving a sickly infant son under the regency of an incapable and priest-ruled mother, and Louis began quickly to press his claims. Having made his preparations on a formidable scale, he sent forth in May, 1667, to all the courts of Europe, an elaborate "Treatise on the Rights of the Most Christian Queen over divers States of the monarchy of Spain," announcing at the same time his intention to make a "journey" in the Catholic Netherlands—the intended journey being a ruthless invasion, in fact, with 50,000 men, under the command of the great marshal-general, Turenne. The army began its march simultaneously with the announcement of its purpose, crossing the frontier on the 24th of May. Town after town was taken, some without resistance and others after a short, sharp siege, directed by Vauban, the most famous among military engineers. Charleroi was occupied on the 2d of June; Tournay surrendered on the 24th; two weeks later Douai fell; Courtrai endured only four days of siege and Oudenarde but two; Lille was a more difficult prize and held Turenne and the king before it for twenty days. "All Walloon Flanders had again become French at the price of less effort and bloodshed than it had cost, in the Middle Ages, to force one of its places. … September 1, the whole French army was found assembled before the walls of Ghent." But Ghent was not assailed, the French army being greatly fatigued and much reduced by the garrisoning of the conquered places. Louis, accordingly, returned to Saint-Germain, and Turenne, after taking Alost, went into winter quarters. Before the winter passed great changes of circumstance had occurred. The Triple Alliance of England, Holland and Sweden had been formed, Louis had made his secret treaty at Vienna with the Emperor, for the partitioning of the Spanish dominions, and his further "journey" in the Netherlands was postponed.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 1, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: A. F. Pontalis, John de Witt, chapter 7 (volume 1).

{2287}

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1668. The Triple Alliance with England and Sweden against the French king.

"The rapid conquests of the French king in Flanders during the last summer had drawn the eyes of Europe towards the seat of war in that country. The pope, Clement IX., through pity for the young king of Spain, and the States, alarmed at the approach of the French arms to their frontier, offered their mediation. To both Louis returned the same answer, that he sought nothing more than to vindicate the rights of his wife; that he should be content to retain possession of the conquests which he had already made, or to exchange them either for Luxembourg, or Franche-comté, with the addition of Aire, St. Omer, Donai, Cambrai, and Charleroi, to strengthen his northern frontier. … But Spain was not sufficiently humbled to submit to so flagrant an injustice. … If it was the interest of England, it was still more the interest of the States, to exclude France from the possession of Flanders. Under this persuasion, sir William Temple, the resident at Brussels, received instructions to proceed to the Hague and sound the disposition of de Witt; and, on his return to London, was despatched back again to Holland with the proposal of a defensive alliance, the object of which should be to compel the French monarch to make peace with Spain on the terms which he had previously offered. … Temple acted with promptitude and address: … he represented the danger of delay; and, contrary to all precedent at the Hague, in the short space of five days—had the constitutional forms been observed it would have demanded five weeks—he negotiated [January, 1668] three treaties which promised to put an end to the war, or, if they failed in that point, to oppose at least an effectual barrier to the further progress of the invader. The first was a defensive alliance by which the two nations bound themselves to aid each other against any aggressor with a fleet of forty men of war, and an army of 6,400 men, or with assistance in money in proportion to the deficiency in men; by the second, the contracting powers agreed by every means in their power to dispose France to conclude a peace with Spain on the alternative already offered, to persuade Spain to accept one part of that alternative before the end of May, and, in case of a refusal, to compel her by war, on condition that France should not interfere by force of arms. These treaties were meant for the public eye: the third was secret, and bound both England and the States, in case of the refusal of Louis, to unite with Spain in the war, and not to lay down their arms till the peace of the Pyrenees were confirmed. On the same day the Swedish ambassadors gave a provisional, and afterwards a positive assent to the league, which from that circumstance obtained the name of the Triple Alliance. Louis received the news of this transaction with an air of haughty indifference. … In consequence of the infirm state of Charles II. of Spain, he had secretly concluded with the emperor Leopold an 'eventual' treaty of partition of the Spanish monarchy on the expected death of that prince, and thus had already bound himself by treaty to do the very thing which it was the object of the allied powers to effect. … The intervention of the emperor, in consequence of the eventual treaty, put an end to the hesitation of the Spanish cabinet; the ambassadors of the several powers met at Aix-la-Chapelle [April-May, 1668]; Spain made her choice; the conquered towns in Flanders were ceded to Louis, and peace was re-established between the two crowns. … The States could ill dissemble their disappointment. They never doubted that Spain, with the choice in her hands, would preserve Flanders, and part with Franche-comté. … The result was owing, it is said, to the resentment of Castel-Rodrigo [the governor of the Spanish Netherlands], who, finding that the States would not join with England to confine France within its ancient limits, resolved to punish them by making a cession, which brought the French frontier to the very neighbourhood of the Dutch territory."

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 11, chapter 6.

"Dr. Lingard, who is undoubtedly a very able and well-informed writer, but whose great fundamental rule of judging seems to be that the popular opinion on a historical question cannot possibly be correct, speaks very slightingly of this celebrated treaty [of the Triple Alliance]. … But grant that Louis was not really stopped in his progress by this famous league; still it is certain that the world then, and long after, believed that he was so stopped; and that this was the prevailing impression in France as well as in other countries. Temple, therefore, at the very least, succeeded in raising the credit of his country, and lowering the credit of a rival power."

Lord Macaulay, Sir William Temple (Essays).

ALSO IN: O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 14.

Sir W. Temple, Letters, January 1668 (Works, volume 1).

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 15, chapter 4 (volume 3).

A. F. Pontalis, John de Witt, chapter 7 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1670. Betrayed to France by the English king.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1668-1670.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1672-1674. The war with France and England. Murder of the DeWitts. Restoration of the Stadtholdership.

"The storm that had been prepared in secret for Holland began to break in 1672. France and England had declared war at once by land and sea, without any cause of quarrel, except that Louis declared that the Dutch insulted him, and Charles complained that they would not lower their flag to his, and that they refused the Stadtholdership to his nephew, William of Orange. Accordingly, his fleet made a piratical attack on the Dutch ships returning from Smyrna, and Louis, with an immense army, entered Holland. … They [the French] would have attempted the passage of the Yssel, but the Dutch forces, under the Prince of Orange, were on the watch, and turned towards the Rhine, which was so low, in consequence of a drouth, that 2,000 adventurous cavalry were able to cross, half wading, half swimming, and gained a footing on the other side." This "passage of the Rhine" was absurdly celebrated as a great military exploit by the servile flatterers of the French king. "The passage thus secured, the King crossed the river the next day on a bridge of boats, and rapidly overran the adjoining country, taking the lesser towns, and offering to the Republic the most severe terms, destructive of their independence, but securing the nominal Stadtholdership to the Prince of Orange. {2288} The magistrates of Amsterdam had almost decided on carrying the keys to Louis, and the Grand Pensionary himself was ready to yield; but William, who preferred ruling a free people by their own choice to being imposed on them by the conqueror, still maintained that perseverance would save Holland, that her dykes, when opened, would admit floods that the enemy could not resist, and that they had only to be firm. The spirit of the people was with him, and in Amsterdam, Dordrecht, and the other cities, there were risings with loud outcries of 'Orange boven,' Up with Orange, insisting that he should be appointed Stadtholder. The magistracy confirmed the choice, but Cornelius de Witt, too firm to yield to a popular cry, refused to sign the appointment, and thus drew on himself the rage of the people. He was arrested under an absurd accusation of having bribed a man to assassinate the Prince, and … [after torture] was sentenced to exile, whereupon his brother [the Grand Pensionary] announced that he should accompany him; but while he was with him in his prison at [the Hague], the atrocious mob again arose [August 20, 1672], broke open the doors, and, dragging out the two brothers, absolutely tore them limb from limb."

C. M. Yonge, Landmarks of History, part 3, chapter 4, part 6.

The Prince of Orange, profiting by the murder of the De Witts, rewarded the murderers, and is smirched by the deed, whether primarily responsible for it or not; but the power which it secured to him was used ably for Holland. The dykes had already been cut, on the 18th of June, and "the sea poured in, placing a waste of water between Louis and Amsterdam, and the province of Holland at least was saved. The citizens worked with the intensest energy to provide for their defence. … Every fourth man among the peasantry was enlisted; mariners and gunners were drawn from the fleet." Meantime, on the 7th of June, the fleet itself, under De Ruyter, had been victorious, in Southwold Bay, or Solebay, over the united fleets of England and France. The victory was indecisive, but it paralyzed the allied navy for a season, and prevented a contemplated descent on Zealand. "All active military operations against Holland were now necessarily at an end. There was not a Dutch town south of the inundation which was not in the hands of the French; and nothing remained for the latter but to lie idle until the ice of winter should enable them to cross the floods which cut them off from Amsterdam. Leaving Turenne in command, Louis therefore returned to St. Germain on August 1." Before winter came, however, the alarm of Europe at Louis' aggressions had brought about a coalition of the Emperor Leopold and the Elector of Brandenburg, to succor the Dutch States. Louis was forced to call Turenne with 16,000 men to Westphalia and Condé with 17,000 to Alsace. "On September 12 the Austrian general Montecuculi, the Duke of Lorraine, and the Grand Elector effected their junction, intending to cross the Rhine and join William;" but Turenne, by a series of masterly movements, forced them to retreat, utterly baffled, into Franconia and Halberstadt. The Elector of Brandenburg, discouraged, withdrew from the alliance, and made peace with Louis, June 6, 1673. The spring of 1673 found the French king advantageously situated, and his advantages were improved. Turning on the Spaniards in their Belgian Netherlands, he laid siege to the important stronghold of Maestricht and it was taken for him by the skill of Vauban, on the 30th of June. But while this success was being scored, the Dutch, at sea, had frustrated another attempt of the Anglo-French fleet to land troops on the Zealand coast. On the 7th of June, and again on the 14th, De Ruyter and Van Tromp fought off the invaders, under Prince Rupert and D'Estrees, driving them back to the Thames. Once more, and for the last time, they made their attempt, on the 21st of August, and were beaten in a battle near the Zealand shore which lasted from daylight until dark. The end of August found a new coalition against Louis formed by treaties between Holland, Spain, the Emperor and the Duke of Lorraine. A little later, the Prince of Orange, after capturing Naarden, effected a junction near Bonn with Montecuculi; who had evaded Turenne. The Electors of Treves and Mayence thereupon joined the coalition and Cologne and Munster made peace. By this time, public opinion in England had become so angrily opposed to the war that Charles was forced to arrange terms of peace with Holland, notwithstanding his engagements with Louis. The tide was now turning fast against France. Denmark had joined the coalition. In March it received the Elector Palatine; in April the Dukes of Brunswick and Lüneburg came into the league; in May the Emperor procured from the Diet a declaration of war in the name of the Empire, and on the 1st of July the Elector of Brandenburg cast in his lot once more with the enemies of France. To effectually meet this new league of his foes, Louis resolved with heroic promptitude to abandon his conquests in the Netherlands. Maestricht and Grave, alone, of the places he had taken, were retained. But Holland still refused to make peace on the terms which the French king proposed, and held her ground in the league.

O. Airy, The English Reformation and Louis XIV., chapter 19.

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, History of France, chapter 44 (volume 5).

C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, chapter 15 (volume 2).

A. F. Pontalis, John de Witt, chapters 12-14 (volume 2).

Sir W. Temple, Memoirs, part 2 (works, volume 2).

See, also, NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1673. Reconquest of New Netherland from the English.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1673-1678. Fresh conquests by Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674, and 1674-1678; also, NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1674. The Treaty of Westminster. Peace with England. Relinquishment of New Netherland.

An offer from the Dutch to restore New Netherland to England "was extorted from the necessities of the republic, and its engagement with Spain. With the consent of the States General, the Spanish ambassador offered advantageous articles to the British government. Charles, finding that Louis refused him further supplies, and that he could not expect any from Parliament, replied that he was willing to accept reasonable conditions. … Sir William Temple was summoned from his retirement, and instructed to confer with the Spanish ambassador at London, the Marquis del Fresno, to whom the States General had sent full powers. {2289} In three days all the points were arranged; and a treaty was signed at Westminster [February 19, 1674] by Arlington and four other commissioners on the part of Great Britain, and by Fresno on the part of the United Netherlands. The honor of the flag, which had been refused by De Witt, was yielded to England; the Treaty of Breda was revived; the rights of neutrals guaranteed; and the commercial principles of the Triple Alliance renewed. By the sixth article it was covenanted that 'all lands, islands, cities, havens, castles and fortresses, which have been or shall be taken by one party from the other, during the time of this last unhappy war, whether in Europe or elsewhere, and before the expiration of the times above limited for the duration of hostilities, shall be restored to the former Lord and Proprietor in the same condition they shall be in at the time that this peace shall be proclaimed.' This article restored New Netherland to the King of Great Britain. The Treaty of Breda had ceded it to him on the principle of 'uti possidetis.' The Treaty of Westminster gave it back to him on the principle of reciprocal restitution. Peace was soon proclaimed at London and at the Hague. The treaty of Westminster delivered the Dutch from fear of Charles, and cut off the right arm of Louis, their more dreaded foe. England, on her part, slipped out of a disastrous war. … By the treaty of Westminster the United Provinces relinquished their conquest of New Netherland to the King of England. The sovereign Dutch States General had treated directly with Charles as sovereign. A question at once arose at Whitehall about the subordinate interest of the Duke of York. It was claimed by some that James's former American proprietorship was revived. … The opinion of counsel having been taken, they advised that the duke's proprietorship had been extinguished by the Dutch conquest, and that the king was now alone seized of New Netherland, by virtue of the Treaty of Westminster. … A new patent to the Duke of York was therefore sealed. By it the king again conveyed to his brother the territories he had held before, and granted him anew the absolute powers of government he had formerly enjoyed over British subjects, with the like additional authority over 'any other person or persons' inhabiting his province. Under the same description of boundaries, New Jersey, and all the territory west of the Connecticut River, together with Long Island and the adjacent islands, and the region of Pemaquid, were again included in the grant. The new patent did not, as has been commonly, but erroneously stated, 'recite and confirm the former.' It did not in any way allude to that instrument. It read as if no previous English patent had ever existed. … As his colonial lieutenant and deputy, the duke, almost necessarily, appointed Major Edmund Andros, whom the king had directed in the previous March to receive New Netherland from the Dutch."

J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of New York, volume 2, chapters 5-6.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1674-1678. Continued war of the Coalition against France.

"The enemies of France everywhere took courage. … Louis XIV. embraced with a firm glance the whole position, and, well advised by Turenne, clearly took his resolution. He understood the extreme difficulty of preserving his conquests, and the facility moreover of making others more profitable, while defending his own frontier. To evacuate Holland, to indemnify himself at the expense of Spain, and to endeavor to treat separately with Holland while continuing the war against the House of Austria,—such was the new plan adopted; an excellent plan, the very wisdom of which condemned so much the more severely the war with Holland. … The places of the Zuyder-Zee were evacuated in the course of December by the French and the troops of Munster. … The evacuation of the United Provinces was wholly finished by spring. … Louis resolved to conquer Franche-Comté in person; while Turenne covered Alsace and Lorraine, Schomberg went to defend Roussillon, and Condé labored to strengthen the French positions on the Meuse, by sweeping the enemy from the environs of Liege and Maestricht. On the ocean, the defensive was preserved." Louis entered Franche-Comté at the beginning of May with a small army of 8,000 infantry and 5,000 or 6,000 cavalry, but with Vauban, the great master of sieges, to do his serious work for him. A small corps had been sent into the country in February, and had already taken Gray, Vesoul and Lons-le-Saulnier. Besançon was now reduced by a short siege; Dole surrendered soon afterward, and early in July the subjugation of the province was complete. "The second conquest of Franche-Comté had cost a little more trouble than the first; but it was definitive. The two Burgundies were no more to be separated, and France was never again to lose her frontier of the Jura. … The allies, from the beginning of the year, had projected a general attack against France. They had debated among themselves the design of introducing two great armies, one from Belgium into Champagne, the other from Germany into Alsace and Lorraine; the Spaniards were to invade Roussillon; lastly, the Dutch fleet was to threaten the coasts of France and attempt some enterprise there. The tardiness of the Germanic diet to declare itself" frustrated the first of these plans. Condé, occupying a strong position near Charleroi, from which the allies could not draw him, took quick advantage of an imprudent movement which they made, and routed them by a fierce attack, at the village of Seneffe (August 11, 1674). But William of Orange rallied the flying forces—Dutch, German and Spanish now fighting side by side—so successfully that Condé was repulsed with terrible loss in the end, when he attempted to make his victory complete. The battle was maintained, by the light of the moon, until midnight, and both armies withdrew next morning, badly crippled. Turenne meantime, in June, had crossed the Rhine at Philippsburg and encountered the Imperialists, on the 16th, near Sinsheim, defeated them there and driven them beyond the Neckar. The following month, he again crossed the river and inflicted upon the Palatinate the terrible destruction which made it for the time being a desert, and which is the black blot on the fame of the great soldier. "Turenne ordered his troops to consume and waste cattle, forage, and harvests, so that the enemy's army, when it returned in force, as he foresaw it would do, could find nothing whereon to subsist." In September the city of Strasburg opened its gates to the Imperialists and gave them the control of its fortified bridge, crossing the Rhine. {2290} Turenne, hastening to prevent the disaster, but arriving too late, attacked his enemies, October 4, at the village of Ensisheim and gained an inconclusive victory. Then followed, before the close of the year, the most famous of the military movements of Turenne. The allies having been heavily reinforced, he retired before them into Lorraine, meeting and gathering up reinforcements of his own as he moved. Then, when he had completely deceived them as to his intentions, he traversed the whole length of the Vosges with his army, in December, and appeared suddenly at Belfort, finding their forces scattered and entirely unprepared. Defeating them at Mülhausen December 29, and again at Colmar, January 5, he expelled them from Alsace, and offered to Strasburg the renewal of its neutrality, which the anxious city was glad to accept. "Thus ended this celebrated campaign, the most glorious, perhaps, presented in the military history of ancient France. None offers higher instruction in the study of the great art of war." In the campaign of 1675, which opened in May, Turenne was confronted by Montecuculi, and the two masterly tacticians became the players of a game which has been the wonder of military students ever since. "Like two valiant athletes struggling foot to foot without either being able to overthrow the other, Turenne and Montecuculi manœuvred for six weeks in the space of a few square leagues [in the canton of Ortnau, Swabia] without succeeding in forcing each other to quit the place." At length, on the 27th of July, Turenne found an opportunity to attack his opponent with advantage, in the defile of Salsbach, and was just completing his preparations to do so, when a cannon-ball from one of the enemy's batteries struck him instantly dead. His two lieutenants, who succeeded to the command, could not carry out his plans, but fought a useless bloody battle at Altenheim and nearly lost their army before retreating across the Rhine. Condé was sent to replace Turenne. Before he arrived, Strasburg had again given its bridge to the Imperialists and they were in possession of Lower Alsace; but no important operations were undertaken during the remainder of the year. In other parts of the wide war field the French suffered disaster. Marshal de Crequi, commanding on the Moselle, was badly defeated at Konsaarbrück, August 11, and Treves, which he defended, was lost a few weeks later. The Swedes, also, making a diversion in the north, as allies of France, were beaten back, at Fehrbellin.