its Colonies in America, their High Mightinesses, by no means obliged
to take the smallest part in them, had formed the firm and invariable
design to adopt and to follow in relation to these troubles, the
system of the most perfect and the most exact neutrality; and when the
same troubles had afterwards enkindled a war, which extended itself to
more than one power, and spread itself to more than one part of the
world, their High Mightinesses have constantly observed and maintained
the same system, while at the same time they have not neglected to
give, on more than one occasion, and relative to the most essential
objects, the most convincing proofs of their sincere disposition to
satisfy the desires of his Majesty, as far as they could advance,
without wounding the rules of impartiality, and without compromising
the rights of their sovereignty. It was in these views and to this
end, that their High Mightinesses at first, and at the first
requisition of his Britannic Majesty, published prohibitions the most
express against the exportation of military stores to the Colonies of
his Majesty in America, and against all fraudulent commerce with the
same Colonies; and to the end, that those prohibitions should be
executed the more effectually, their High Mightinesses did not
hesitate, moreover, to take measures which did not fail to restrain
and confine very greatly, the navigation and the commerce of their own
subjects with the Colonies of the State in the West Indies.
"It was, moreover, in the same views, and to the same end, that their
High Mightinesses sent orders the most precise to all the Governors
and Commanders of their Colonies and of their establishments, as well
as to all the officers, commanders of their vessels of wars, to take
special care to do nothing towards the flag of the American Congress,
from whence they might lawfully infer or deduce an acknowledgment of
the independence of the said Colonies. And it was above all in these
views and to this end, that their High Mightinesses having received a
memorial, which was presented to them by the Ambassador of England,
containing complaints the most spirited against the Governor of St
Eustatia, condescended to deliberate concerning this memorial,
although conceived in terms little accommodated to those respects,
which sovereign powers reciprocally owe to each other.
"This deliberation was soon followed by the recall of the said
Governor, whom their High Mightinesses ordered to render an account of
his conduct, and whom they did not permit to return to his residence
until after he had exculpated himself of all the accusations brought
against him by a justification of himself in detail, a copy of which
was transmitted without delay to the Ministry of his Britannic
Majesty. It was by means of these measures, that their High
Mightinesses, having always had it at heart to avoid giving the
smallest cause of dissatisfaction to his Britannic Majesty, have
constantly endeavored to entertain and to cultivate his friendship and
good understanding. But the conduct of his Britannic Majesty towards
the Republic has been diametrically opposite.
"The troubles between the Courts of London and Versailles had scarcely
broken out, when we saw the ports of England filled with Dutch ships
unjustly taken and detained. These vessels navigated under the faith
of treaties, and were not loaded with other merchandises than with
those which the express tenor of treaties declared free and lawful. We
saw those free cargoes forced to submit to the law of an arbitrary and
despotic authority. The Cabinet of St James knowing no other rules
than a pretended right of temporary conveniency, thought proper to
appropriate those cargoes to the Crown by a forced purchase, and to
employ them to the profit of the royal navy. The representations the
most energetic, and the most serious on the part of their High
Mightinesses against such proceedings were to no purpose, and it was
in vain that we demanded in the strongest manner the treaty of
commerce, which subsisted between England and the Republic; by this
treaty the rights and liberties of the neutral flag were clearly
defined and stated. The subjects of Great Britain have enjoyed the
full advantage of this treaty in the first and the only case, in which
it pleased the Court of London to remain neuter, while the Republic
was at war; at present in the reciprocal case, this Court cannot
without the greatest injustice refuse the enjoyment of the same
advantages to the Republic; and as little as his Britannic Majesty had
a right to take away the advantageous effects of this treaty from
their High Mightinesses, as little foundation had he to pretend to
turn them from a neutrality, which they had embraced, and to force
them to plunge themselves into a war, the causes of which had an
immediate relation to rights and to possessions of his Britannic
Majesty, originating without the limits of defensive treaties.
"And, nevertheless, it was this treaty, which his Majesty, from the
commencement of the troubles with the Crown of France, made no scruple
to infringe and violate. The contraventions and infractions of this
treaty on the part of Great Britain, and the arbitrary decisions of
the courts of justice of that kingdom, directly contrary to the
express sanction of this same treaty, multiplied from day to day; the
merchant vessels of the Republic became the innocent victims of
exactions and accumulated violences of the English men-of-war and
privateers. Not content with this, even the flag of the State was not
spared, but openly insulted and outraged by the hostile attack of the
convoy under the command of the Rear Admiral, the Count de Byland. The
strongest representations on the part of the State to his Britannic
Majesty were useless. The vessels taken from this convoy were declared
lawful prizes; and this insult committed to the flag of the Republic
was soon followed by the open violation of its neutral territory, both
in Europe and in America. We shall content ourselves to cite two
examples of it. At the Island of St Martins, the vessels of his
Britannic Majesty attacked and took by force several vessels, which
were in the Road, under the cannon of the fortress, where, according
to the inviolable law of nations, these vessels ought to have found a
safe asylum. The insolences committed by an English armed vessel upon
the coast of the Republic, near the Island of Goedereede, furnish a
second example of these violences; these insolences were pushed to
such a degree, that several inhabitants of the Island, who were upon
the shore, where they ought to have thought themselves sheltered from
all insult, were exposed by the fire of this vessel to the most
imminent danger, which they could not avoid but by retiring into the
interior part of the Island. Unheard of proceedings, for which the
Republic, notwithstanding the strongest and best founded
representations, has not been able to obtain the smallest
satisfaction.
"While affairs were thus in a situation, which left to their High
Mightinesses no other alternative, but to see the navigation and the
commerce of their subjects, upon which depend the prosperity or the
ruin of the Republic, wholly annihilated, or to come to violent
measures against their ancient friend and ally, the magnanimous heart
of her Majesty, the Empress of Russia, engaged her to invite the
Republic with equal affection and humanity, to take measures the most
just, and entirely conformable to the treaties which subsist between
them and the other powers, to the end to defend and to maintain,
conjointly with her Imperial Majesty and the other powers of the
north, the privileges and the immunities, which the law of nations and
the most solemn treaties assure to the neutral flag. This invitation
could not but be infinitely agreeable to their High Mightinesses,
considering that it offered them a means of establishing the
protection of the commerce of their subjects upon the most solid
foundation, and opened a way to place their independence in safety
from all infraction, without derogating in the least from the
alliances contracted, both with his Britannic Majesty and with the
other belligerent powers.
"But it is this same means, which the Court of London has endeavored
to take away from the Republic, by proceeding with precipitation to
extremities the most outrageous, by the recall of her Ambassador, by
the publication of a Manifesto containing pretended grievances, and by
granting letters of marque and of pretended reprisals against the
State, its subjects, and their goods; by which, this Court has but too
plainly discovered her designs long since formed, of laying aside the
essential interests which united the two nations, and of breaking the
ties of ancient friendship, by attacking this State by a war the most
unjust.
"It will not be necessary to refute at length the reasons and
pretended griefs alleged in the Manifesto, to convince every impartial
man of their insolidity. It is sufficient to observe, in a few words,
relative to the offer made by his Britannic Majesty, to open friendly
conferences, that it was the abovementioned Treaty of Marine, which
alone could make the object of those conferences; that the
dispositions of this treaty, conceived in the most expressive terms,
could not be liable to any doubt nor equivocation, that this treaty
gives neutral powers the right of transporting freely in the ports of
the belligerent powers all sorts of naval stores; that the Republic
proposing to itself no other end, and desiring of his Britannic
Majesty no other thing, than the quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the
rights stipulated by this treaty, a point so evidently clear, and so
incontestably just could not become the object of a negotiation, or of
a new convention derogatory to this treaty, so that their High
Mightinesses could not persuade themselves nor show themselves
disposed to renounce, voluntarily, rights justly acquired, and to
desist from these rights from regard to the Court of England; a
renunciation, which, being advantageous to one of the belligerent
powers, would have been little compatible with the principles of the
neutrality, and by which their High Mightinesses would have exposed,
on the other hand, the safety of the State to dangers, which they were
obliged carefully to avoid; a renunciation, moreover, which would have
caused to commerce and navigation, the principal support of the
Republic, and source of her prosperity, an irreparable prejudice;
since the different branches of commerce, strictly connected with each
other, form a whole, whereof it is impossible to cut off so principal
a part, without necessarily causing the destruction and ruin of the
whole body; not to mention, that at the same time that their High
Mightinesses made, with reason, a difficulty to accept the proposed
conferences, they have not a little modified and tempered the actual
exercise of their right by a provisional resolution.
"And as to what relates to the succors demanded, their High
Mightinesses cannot dissemble, that they have never been able to
conceive how his Britannic Majesty has thought, that he could insist,
with the least appearance of justice or of equity, upon the succors
stipulated by the treaties, at a time when he had already beforehand
withdrawn himself from the obligation, which those treaties imposed
upon him towards the Republic. Their High Mightinesses have not been
less surprised to see, that while the troubles in America, and their
direct consequences could not concern the Republic in virtue of any
treaty, and that the succor had not been demanded, until after the
Crown of Spain had augmented the number of belligerent powers, his
Britannic Majesty has, nevertheless, taken the occasion of this event
to insist upon his demand with so much earnestness, and such an ardor,
as if his Majesty thought himself to have a right to pretend and to
maintain, that a war, once enkindled between him and any other power,
was alone sufficient to oblige the State to grant forthwith, and
without any anterior examination, the succors stipulated.
"The Republic, it is true, had obliged itself by the treaties to
assist Great Britain at all times, when this kingdom should find
itself attacked, or threatened with an unjust war; and what is more,
the Republic ought in this case, according to the same treaties, to
declare war against the aggressor; but their High Mightinesses never
pretended to abdicate the right, which flows necessarily from the
nature of every offensive alliance, and which cannot be contested to
allied powers, to examine in the first place, and before the granting
of succors, or taking part in the war, the principle of the
dissensions which have arisen, and the nature of the difference, which
has given occasion to it, as well as also to examine and weigh
thoroughly the reasons and the motives, which may establish the _casus
foederis_, and which ought to serve as a basis of the justice and the
lawfulness of the war, on the part of that one of the confederated
powers, who demands the succor. And there exists no treaty, by which
their High Mightinesses have renounced the independence of the State,
and sacrificed their interests to those of Great Britain, to such a
degree, as to deprive themselves of the right of examination, so
necessary and so indispensable, by engaging themselves to measures, by
which they may be considered as obliged in duty to submit to the good
pleasure of the Court of England, by granting the succors demanded,
even where this Court, engaged in a quarrel with another power, judges
proper to prefer the way of arms to that of a reasonable satisfaction
upon just complaints.
"It was not then by a spirit of party, or by the device of a
predominant cabal, but after a mature deliberation, and in a sincere
desire to maintain the most precious interests of the Republic, that
the States of the respective Provinces have all unanimously testified,
that they were of opinion, that the succor demanded ought to be
refused in a manner the most polite; and their High Mightinesses would
not have failed to have transmitted to his Britannic Majesty
conformable to these resolutions, an answer to the repeated demands of
succors, if they had not been prevented by the violent and unheard of
attack of the flag of the State under the command of Rear Admiral
Byland, by the refusal to give satisfaction upon a point so grave, and
by the declaration not less strange than unjust, which his Majesty
thought fit to make relative to the suspension of the treaties, which
subsisted between him and the Republic. Also many events, which by
requiring deliberations of quite another nature, put an end to those,
which had taken place on the subject of the said requisition.
"It is in vain, and contrary to all truth, that they have endeavored
to multiply the number of grievances, by alleging the suppression of
the duties of exportation as a measure tending to facilitate the
transportation of naval stores to France; for besides, that this
suppression forms an object, which regards the interior direction of
commerce, to which all the sovereigns have an incontestible right, and
whereof they are not obliged to give an account to any body, this
point has, it is true, been taken into consideration, but has never
been concluded; so that these rights are still received upon the
ancient footing; and that which is advanced in this regard in the
manifesto, is found destitute of all foundation, although we cannot
refrain from saying, that the conduct of his Britannic Majesty
towards the Republic, furnished but too many motives to justify a
similar measure on the part of their High Mightinesses.
"The discontent of his Britannic Majesty, on the subject of what
passed with the American, Paul Jones, is also quite as ill grounded.
Already for several years, their High Mightinesses had resolved, and
published everywhere, precise orders concerning the admission of
privateers and armed vessels of foreign nations with their prizes, in
the ports of their domination, orders, which to that time had been
observed and executed without the least exception. In the case in
question, their High Mightinesses could not depart from those orders,
in regard to an armed vessel, who, furnished with a commission of the
American Congress, was found in the Road of the Texel, combined with
frigates of war of a sovereign power, without erecting themselves into
judges, and pronouncing a decision upon matters, in which their High
Mightinesses were in nowise obliged to take any part, and in which it
did not appear to them convenient to the interests of the Republic to
meddle in any manner. Their High Mightinesses then thought fit not to
depart from the orders given so long ago, but they resolved to give
the most express prohibition to hinder the said armed vessel from
providing herself with warlike stores, and enjoined upon her to quit
the Road as soon as possible, without remaining there longer than the
time absolutely necessary to repair the damages suffered at sea, with
the formal denunciation, that in case of a longer delay we should be
obliged to compel his departure, to which end the officer of the
State, commanding at the said Road, took care to make the requisite
dispositions, whereof this armed vessel had scarcely the time to
prevent the effects.
"In regard to what has passed in the other parts of the world, the
informations which their High Mightinesses have received from time to
time from the East Indies, are directly opposite to those, which
appear to have come under the eyes of his Britannic Majesty. The
repeated complaints, which the directors of the East India Company
have addressed to their High Mightinesses, and which the love of peace
has made them stifle in their bosoms, are incontestible proofs of it.
And the measures taken with regard to the West Indies, enumerated
heretofore, ought to serve in all times as an irrefragable proof of
the sincerity, the zeal, and the attention with which their High
Mightinesses have taken it to heart, to maintain in those countries
the most exact and the most strict neutrality; and their High
Mightinesses have never been able to discover the smallest legal proof
of any infraction of their orders in this respect.
"As to what concerns the project of an eventual treaty with North
America, conceived by a member of the government of the Province of
Holland, without any public authority, and the memorials presented
upon this subject by Sir Joseph Yorke, the affair happened in the
following manner. As soon as the Ambassador had presented the memorial
of the 10th of November of the last year, their High Mightinesses,
without stopping at expressions little suitable among sovereigns, with
which this memorial was filled, did not delay to commence a
deliberation the most serious upon this subject, and it was by their
resolution of the 27th of the same month, that they did not hesitate
to _disavow_ and to _disapprove_ publicly all which had been done in
this respect; after which, they had all reason to expect that his
Britannic Majesty would have acquiesced in this declaration, since he
could not be ignorant that their High Mightinesses exercise no
jurisdiction in the respective Provinces, and that it was to the
States of the Province of Holland to whom, as clothed like the States
of the other Provinces, with a sovereign and exclusive authority over
their subjects, ought to be remitted an affair relatively to which
their High Mightinesses had no reason to doubt, that the States of the
said Province would act according to the exigence of the case, and
conformably to the laws of the State and the rules of equity.
"The earnestness with which Sir Joseph Yorke insisted, by a second
memorial, upon the article of the punishment, cannot therefore but
appear very strange to their High Mightinesses, and their surprise
increased still more when three days afterwards, this Ambassador
declared, verbally, to the President of their High Mightinesses, that
if he did not receive that day an answer entirely satisfactory to his
memorial, he should be obliged to inform his Court of it by an
express; their High Mightinesses, informed of this declaration,
penetrated the importance of it, as manifesting visibly the measure
already resolved in the Council of the King; and although the
established customs admit not of deliberations upon verbal
declarations of foreign Ministers, they judged it nevertheless proper
to depart from them on this occasion, and to order their Secretary to
wait on Sir Joseph Yorke, and give him to understand that his memorial
had been taken _ad referendum_ by the Deputies of the respective
Provinces conformably to received usages, and to the constitution of
the government; adding, what appears to have been omitted with design
in the manifesto, that they would endeavor to complete an answer to
his memorial as soon as possible, and as soon as the constitution of
the government would permit. Accordingly, a few days after, the
Deputies of Holland notified to the assembly of their High
Mightinesses, that the States of their Province had unanimously
resolved to require the advice of their Court of Justice, on the
subject of demand of punishment, charging the said Court to give their
opinion the soonest possible, laying aside all other affairs. Their
High Mightinesses did not fail to transmit forthwith this resolution
to Sir Joseph Yorke; but what was their surprise and their
astonishment, when they learned that this Ambassador, after having
reviewed his instructions, had addressed a billet to the Secretary, by
which, in accusing this resolution with being evasive, he refused to
transmit it to his Court; which obliged their High Mightinesses to
send the said resolution to the Count de Welderen, their Minister at
London, with orders to present it as soon as possible to the Ministry
of his Britannic Majesty; but the refusal of this Ministry threw an
obstacle in the way of the execution of these orders.
"After this explanation of all the circumstances of this affair, the
impartial public will be in a condition to set a just value upon the
principal motive, or rather pretext which his Britannic Majesty has
used to let loose the reins of his designs against the Republic. The
affair reduces itself to this. His Majesty was informed of a
negotiation which should have taken place in the year 1778, between a
member of the government of one of the Provinces and a representative
of the American Congress, which negotiation would have had for its
object to project a treaty of commerce, to be concluded between the
Republic and the said Colonies, _casu quo_, viz. in case the
independence of these Colonies should have been acknowledged by the
Crown of England; this negotiation, although conditional, and annexed
to a condition, which depended upon an act to be antecedently
performed by his Majesty himself; this negotiation, which without this
act, or this anterior declaration, could not produce the smallest
effect, was taken in so ill a part by his Majesty, and appeared to
excite his discontent in such a degree, that he thought fit to require
of the State a disavowal and a public disapprobation, as well as a
complete punishment and satisfaction. It was forthwith, and without
the least delay, that their High Mightinesses granted the first part
of the requisition, but the punishment demanded was not in their
power, and they could not agree to it, without flying in the face of
the fundamental constitution of the State. The States of the Province
of Holland were the only tribunal to which it belonged to take legal
cognizance, and to provide for the case by the ordinary and regular
ways.