replied that in such a case
England would take an active part in favour of the stadtholder. Pitt,
indeed, engaged the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel to furnish 12,000 troops,
if they should be required, and at the same time sent dispatches, both
by sea and land, to Bengal and Madras, directing the governors of those
provinces, in case of war, to attack the French possessions in India
and to seize the Dutch settlements in the name of the stadtholder. His
prompt measures had the effect of overawing the court of Versailles, and
being likewise distracted by its own financial embarrassments, it was
under the mortifying necessity of abandoning those designs on the United
Provinces, which had long been among its most cherished projects. In the
meantime, on the 13th of September, the Duke of Brunswick, who commanded
the Prussian forces in the contiguous duchy of Cleves, entered Holland
at the head of 20,000 troops. The Dutch had boldly defied the King of
Prussia, but their consternation at this event was extreme, and the
country seemed everywhere unprepared for resistance. Utrecht surrendered
to the Duke almost as soon as summoned; Gorcum, Dordt, Schoonhoven, and
other towns in his route, tamely submitted to him; and Amsterdam,
which alone made any show of resistance, after a fortnight's siege,
was captured. So rapid were his successes, that the proud republic of
Holland, which had maintained a contest of eighty years against the
power of Spain, and which repulsed the attacks of Louis XIV., when in
the zenith of his glory, was in the course of one month overrun by the
troops of the conqueror. The result was, that the stadtholder was not
only reinstated in his former privileges, but gratified with new, and
that the ancient forms of government were re-established. Tranquillity
being restored, the Duke of Brunswick withdrew the main body of his
forces from Holland, leaving 4,000 only for the security of peace,
and the protection of the stadtholder. About the same time an amicable
arrangement was effected between the courts of England and France, by
which it was agreed to discontinue warlike preparations on both sides,
and to place the navy of each kingdom on the peace establishment. War,
therefore, was averted; Pitt was left to pursue his measures of reform
undisturbed, and the court of Versailles to consider its financial
embarrassments. But in Holland this triumph of the Orangists did not put
an end to the disaffection that prevailed