The Batavian Republic 523
known that French émigrés, royalists, Orange emissaries, spies, and British agents
were everywhere active. Rightist coups were expected.
What happened, however, was the French coup d’état of Fructidor, on Septem-
ber 4, 1797. Republicans in France combined with Bonaparte to suppress counter-
revolution. They purged the French chambers and Directory, thus for a time giving
encouragement to the democratic left. The Dutch democrats were delighted. As
one of them wrote to Valckenaer in Spain, “If the plans of the [French] royalists
had only succeeded, how fast Father William [i.e., William V ] would have been
with his! We have been finding this citizen’s agents all over the country. Six of
them were arrested yesterday in this city.” Or as Robert Barclay, the British secret
agent at The Hague, described the reassertion of revolutionism to the British for-
eign secretary, Lord Grenville: “The same ill temper that prevails in France is at-
tempted to be raised in every shape in the minds of the unfortunate inhabitants of
this country, and in order to effect this, My lord, more speedily, the moderate and
respectable persons comprising the municipalities of the towns and villages have
already been changed to make way for the most violent, and of course the vilest
and most ignorant among the people.”^32
After rejecting the constitution, the Dutch elected a new convention to draft
another. Moderates were weaker, and democrats stronger, than in the first; but still
no majority could be formed to agree upon anything. On October 11 came the
battle of Camperdown. The Dutch fleet was defeated by the British. For the first
time in history a Dutch admiral was taken captive. This turn of events discredited
the provisional governing committees. Patriots believed that moderates in the gov-
ernment had deliberately ordered out the fleet before it was ready and before the
time called for in the Franco- Batavian war plan, in order to avoid making a true
contribution to the impending invasion of Ireland. The cry was renewed for a uni-
tary and effectual government that would not mismanage the navy.
The Dutch clubs and other radicals demanded a Dutch Fructidor.^33 They asked
for the recall of Noël, who they said had mixed too much with “aristocrats.” The
French post- Fructidorian government, having broken off peace talks with En-
gland, was committed to a renewal of hostilities and preparing to invade the Brit-
ish Isles. It was losing patience with the interminable Dutch indecision and pre-
pared to support any strong government that would act as an ally. The Fructidor
turnover brought Talleyrand to the foreign ministry, while his predecessor, Delac-
roix, went to Holland to replace Noël. Delacroix was an old Jacobin, who had
voted for the death of Louis XVI; he was a man of experience and ability, who had
been chief assistant to Turgot years before, and was to end his life as one of Napo-
leon’s prefects. According to his present instructions, his first duty was to get a
workable constitution adopted in the Netherlands; the matter should preferably be
left to the Dutch, and honest elections were to be desired, but if necessary to get a
decision, the elections might be “fixed.”^34
32 Ibid., 132, 396, 538.
33 Notes to Barras, Talleyrand, etc., ibid., 548–52; The Amsterdam Club to Vreede, December
179 7, ibid., 563; “Observations sur l’état actuel de la République batave,” December 17, 1797, ibid.,
567–71; Lestevenon to Valckenaer, Jan. 9, 1798, ibid., 582–84.
34 Ibid., 140–45.