The population of Amsterdam was reduced from two hundred and twenty thousand souls to one hundred and ninety thousand, of which a fourth part derived their whole subsistence from charitable institutions, while another fourth part received partial succor from the same sources.  At Haarlem, where the population had been chiefly employed in bleaching and preparing linen made in Brabant, whole streets were levelled with the ground, and more than five hundred houses destroyed.  At The Hague, at Delft, and in other towns, many inhabitants had been induced to pull down their houses, from inability to keep them in repair or pay the taxes.  The preservation of the dikes, requiring an annual expense of six hundred thousand pounds sterling, was everywhere neglected.  The sea inundated the country, and threatened to resume its ancient dominion.  No object of ambition, no source of professional wealth or distinction, remained to which a Hollander could aspire.  None could voluntarily enter the army or navy, to fight for the worst enemy of Holland.  The clergy were not provided with a decent competency.  The ancient laws of the country, so dear to its pride and its prejudices, were replaced by the Code Napoleon; so that old practitioners had to recommence their studies, and young men were disgusted with the drudgery of learning a system which was universally pronounced unfit for a commercial country.

Independent of this mass of positive ill, it must be borne in mind that in Holland trade was not merely a means of gaining wealth, but a passion long and deeply grafted on the national mind:  so that the Dutch felt every aggravation of calamity, considering themselves degraded and sacrificed by a power which had robbed them of all which attaches a people to their native land; and, for an accumulated list of evils, only offered them the empty glory of appertaining to the country which gave the law to all the nations of Europe, with the sole exception of England.

Those who have considered the events noted in this history for the last two hundred years, and followed the fluctuations of public opinion depending on prosperity or misfortune, will have anticipated that, in the present calamitous state of the country, all eyes were turned toward the family whose memory was revived by every pang of slavery, and associated with every throb for freedom.  The presence of the Prince of Orange, William IV., who had, on the death of his father, succeeded to the title, though he had lost the revenues of his ancient house, and the re-establishment of the connection with England, were now the general desire.  Some of the principal partisans of the House of Nassau were for some time in correspondence with his most serene highness.  The leaders of the various parties into which the country was divided became by degrees more closely united.  Approaches toward a better understanding were reciprocally made; and they ended in a general anxiety for the expulsion of the French, with the establishment of a free constitution, and a cordial desire that the Prince of Orange should be at its head.  It may be safely affirmed, that, at the close of the year 1813, these were the unanimous wishes of the Dutch nation.