committee.  The land was divided into districts each containing 15,000 inhabitants; these again into fundamental assemblies (grondvergaderingen) of 500 persons; each of these assemblies chose an “elector” (kiezer); and then the group of thirty electors chose a deputy to represent the district.  The National Assembly was in this way to consist of one hundred and twenty-six members; its deliberations were to be public, the voting individualistic and the majority to prevail.  A Commission of twenty-one deputies was to be appointed, who were to frame a draft-Constitution, which after approval by the Assembly was to be submitted to the whole body of the people for acceptance or rejection.

The Assembly, having duly met on March 1, 1796, in the Binnenhof at the Hague, elected Pieter Paulus as their president, but had the misfortune to lose his experienced direction very speedily.  He had for some time been in bad health, and on March 17 he died.  It fell to his lot to assist at the ceremonial closing of the last meeting of the States-General, which had governed the Republic of the United Netherlands for more than two centuries.

The National Assembly reflected the pronounced differences of opinion in the land.  Orangist opinion had no representatives, although possibly more than half the population had Orange sympathies.  All the deputies had accepted in principle French revolutionary ideas, but there were three distinct parties, the unitarians, the moderates and the federalists.  The moderates, who were in a majority, occupied, as their name implied, an intermediate position between the unitarians or revolutionary party, who wished for a centralised republic after the French model, and the federalists or conservatives, who aimed at retaining so far as possible the rights of the several provinces and towns to manage their own affairs.  The leaders of the unitarians were Vreede, Midderigh, Valckenier and Gogel; of the moderates Schimmelpenninck, Hahn and Kantelaur; of the federalists, Vitringa, Van Marle and De Mist.  After the death of Pieter Paulus the most influential man in an Assembly composed of politicians mostly without any parliamentary experience was the eloquent and astute Schimmelpenninck, whose opportunist moderation sprang from a natural dislike of extreme courses.

One of the first cares of the Assembly was the appointment of the Commission of twenty-one members to draw up a draft Constitution.  The (so-styled) Regulation, representing the views of the moderate majority, was presented to the Assembly on November 10.  The Republic was henceforth to be a unified state governed by the Sovereign People; but the old provinces, though now named departments, were to retain large administrative rights and their separate financial quotas.  The draft met fierce opposition from the unitarians, but after much discussion and many amendments it was at length accepted by the majority.  It had, however, before becoming law, to be submitted to the people; and the network of Jacobin clubs throughout the country, under the leadership of the central club at Amsterdam, carried on a widespread and secret revolutionary propaganda against the Regulation.  They tried to enlist the open co-operation of the French ambassador, Noel, but he, acting under the instruction of the cautious Talleyrand, was not disposed to commit himself.