the Netherlands. The motives which prompted it were
partly sentimental, partly practical. There was a certain similarity
between the struggle for independence on the part of the American
colonists against a mighty state like Great Britain, and their own
struggle with the world-power of Spain. There was also the hope that the
rebellion would have the practical result of opening out to the Dutch
merchants a lucrative trade with the Americans, one of whose chief
grievances against the mother-country had been the severity of the
restrictions forbidding all trading with foreign lands. At the same
time the whole air was full of revolutionary ideas, which were
unsettling men's minds. This was no less the case in the Netherlands
than elsewhere; and the American revolt was regarded as a realisation
and vindication in practical politics of the teaching of Montesquieu,
Voltaire and Rousseau, whose works were widely read, and of the
Englishmen Hume, Priestley and Richard Price. Foremost among the
propagandists of these ideas were Jan Dirk van der Capellen tot de Pol,
a nobleman of Overyssel, and the three burgomasters of Amsterdam, Van
Berckel, De Vrij Temminck and Hooft, all anti-Orange partisans and
pro-French in sentiment. Amidst all these contending factions and
opinions, the State remained virtually without a head, William V
drifting along incapable of forming an independent decision, or of
making a firm and resolute use of the great powers with which he was
entrusted.

Torn by internal dissensions, the maintenance of neutrality by the
Republic became even more difficult than in the Seven Years' War. The
old questions of illicit trade with the enemy and the carrying of
contraband arose. The Dutch islands of St Eustatius and Curacoa became
centres of smuggling enterprise; and Dutch merchant vessels were
constantly being searched by the British cruisers and often carried off
as prizes into English ports. Strong protests were made and great
irritation aroused. Amsterdam was the chief sufferer. Naturally in this
hot-bed of Republican opinion and French sympathies, the prince was
blamed and was accused of preferring English interests to those of his
own country. The arrival of the Duke de la Vauguyon, as French
ambassador, did much to fan the flame. Vauguyon entered into close
relations with the Amsterdam regents and did all in his power to
exacerbate the growing feeling of hostility to England, and to persuade
the Republic to ab