The Great Assembly met on January 11,1651, in the Count’s Hall in the Binnenhof at the Hague.  The sittings lasted until September, for there were many important matters to be settled on which the representatives of the seven provinces were far from being in entire agreement.  The chief controversies centred around the interpretation of the Utrecht Act of Union, the Dordrecht principles, and military affairs.  The last-named proved the most thorny.  The general result was decentralisation, and the strengthening of the Provincial Estates at the expense of the States-General.  It was agreed that the established religion should be that formulated at Dordrecht, that the sects should be kept in order, and the placards against Roman Catholicism enforced.  In accordance with the proposal of Holland there was to be no captain-or admiral-general.  Brederode, with the rank of field-marshal, was placed at the head of the army.  The Provincial Estates were entrusted with considerable powers over the troops in their pay.  The effect of this, and of the decision of five provinces to dispense with a stadholder and to transfer his power and prerogatives to the Estates, was virtually the establishment in permanent authority of a number of close municipal corporations.  It meant the supersession alike of monarchy and popular government, both of which were to a certain extent represented by the authority vested in, and the influence exerted by, the stadholder princes of Orange, in favour of a narrow oligarchic rule.  Moreover, in this confederation of seven semi-sovereign provinces, Holland, which contributed to the strength, the finances and the commerce of the Union more than all the other provinces added together, obtained now, in the absence of an “eminent head,” that position of predominance, during the stadholderless period which now follows, for which its statesmen had so long striven.  When the amiable Jacob Cats, the Council-Pensionary of Holland, closed the Great Assembly in a flowery speech describing the great work that it had accomplished, a new chapter in the history of the republic may be said to have begun.

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CHAPTER XIV

THE RISE OF JOHN DE WITT.

THE FIRST ENGLISH WAR

Before the sittings of the Great Assembly had come to an end, a young statesman, destined to play the leading part in the government of the Dutch republic during two decades, had already made his mark.  After the death of William II Jacob de Witt was not only reinstated in his former position at Dordrecht but on December 21, 1650, John, his younger son, at the age of 25 years was appointed pensionary of that town.  In this capacity he was ex officio spokesman of the deputation sent to represent Dordrecht in the Great Assembly.  His knowledge, his readiness and persuasiveness of speech, his industry and his gifts at once of swift insight and orderly thoroughness, quickly secured for him a foremost place both in the deliberations of the Assembly and in the conduct of the negotiations with the English Parliament, which at this time required very delicate handling.