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The circumstances into which it drove the United States, compelled them to appoint the Prince of Orange Captain General and Admiral: he took the oath prescribed by the Perpetual Edict, not to aspire to the stadtholderate, and to reject it, if offered.
The present chapter will lead our readers to the public life of Grotius: in a former page we succinctly mentioned the principal events in the history of the United Provinces, from their first insurrection against Philip II. till their declaration of independence. On that event, they continued Prince William of Orange in the Stadtholderate: he was entitled to it by his civil and military talents.
France, in her turn, was finding herself alone, with all Europe against her; scared, and, consequently, active and resolute; the congress of Cologne had broken up; not one of the belligerents desired peace; the Hollanders had just settled the heredity of the stadtholderate in the house of Orange. Louis XIV. saw the danger.
At the death of William IV. William, his son, and afterwards his successor in the Stadtholderate, was an infant, in very tender years. His mother was named by the states Governess of the United Provinces.
The states-general dissolved a national assembly installed at The Hague; and, the stadtholderate abolished, the United Provinces now changed their form of government, their long-cherished institutions, and their very name, and were christened the Batavian Republic.
These brothers De Witt had long served the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic, and the people had grown tired of the Republic, and wanted William, Prince of Orange, for Stadtholder. John de Witt had signed the Act re-establishing the Stadtholderate, but Cornelius had only signed it under the compulsion of an Orange mob that attacked his house at Dordrecht.
The latter powers had in 1787 re-established by force the hereditary, stadtholderate of the United Provinces. The only act which did honour to French policy, was the support it had happily given to the emancipation of North America. The revolution of 1789, while extending the moral influence of France, diminished still more its diplomatic influence.
John van Witt was accused of all the misfortunes of the state; the people demanded with loud outcries the restoration of the stadtholderate, but lately abolished by a law voted by the States under the presumptuous title of perpetual edict. Dordrecht, the native place of the Van Witts, gave the signal of insurrection.
This was a great step towards making the Stadtholderate hereditary in their families, one of the leading objects of their ambitious views. His Edition of Stobæus. His Treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis. His Treatise de Veritate Religionis Christianæ. His Treatise de Jure summarum potestatum circa sacra. His Commentary on the Scriptures. Some other Works of Grotius
At first, his influence within them was so great, that he was said to be King in the United States, and Stadtholder in England; but it declined gradually; and an attempt by him to obtain the succession to the stadtholderate for John Friso, Prince of Nassau and Hereditary Stadtholder of Frizeland, absolutely failed. He made, by his will, that prince his testamentary heir.
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