The revolution was completely triumphant, for on this very day the stadholder, despite the protests of his sons and the efforts of the council-pensionary, had left the country.  The English government had offered to receive William V and his family; and arrangements had been quietly made for the passage across the North Sea.  The princess with her daughter-in-law and grandson were the first to leave; and on January 17, 1795, William himself, on the ground that the French would never negotiate so long as he was in the country, bade farewell to the States-General and the foreign ambassadors.  On the following day he embarked with his sons and household on a number of fishing-pinks at Scheveningen and put to sea.  With his departure the stadholderate and the Republic of the United Netherlands came to an end.

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CHAPTER XXVII

THE BATAVIAN REPUBLIC, 1795-1806

On January 19, 1795, Amsterdam fell into the hands of the advancing French troops.  Daendels had previously caused a proclamation to be distributed which declared “that the representatives of the French people wished the Dutch nation to make themselves free; that they do not desire to oppress them as conquerors, but to ally themselves with them as with a free people.”  A complete change of the city government took place without any disturbance or shedding of blood.  At the summons of the Revolutionary Committee the members of the Town Council left the Council Hall and were replaced by twenty-one citizens “as provisional representatives of the people of Amsterdam.”  Of this body Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, a former advocate of the Council, was appointed president.  The other towns, one after the other, followed in the steps of the capital.  The patrician corporations were abolished and replaced by provisional municipal assemblies.  Everywhere the downfall of the old regime was greeted with tumultuous joy by those large sections of the Dutch population which had imbibed revolutionary principles; and the French troops were welcomed by the “patriots” as brothers and deliverers.  “Trees of Liberty,” painted in the national colours, were erected in the principal squares; and the citizens, wearing “caps of liberty” danced round them hand in hand with the foreign soldiers.  Feast-making, illuminations and passionate orations, telling that a new era of “liberty, fraternity and equality” had dawned for the Batavian people, were the order of the day.  The Revolution was not confined to the town-corporations.  At the invitation of the Amsterdam Committee and under the protection of the French representatives, deputations from fourteen towns met at the Hague on January 26.  Taking possession of the Assembly Hall of the Estates of Holland and choosing as their president Pieter Paulus, a man generally respected, this Provisional Assembly proceeded to issue a series of decrees subverting all the ancient institutions