their headquarters at Zwijndrecht.  The first enthusiasm however died down, and the sect gradually disappeared.  More serious was the liberal revolt against the cut-and-dried orthodoxy of Dort.  Slowly it made headway, and it found leaders in Hofstede de Groot, professor at Groningen, and in two eloquent preachers, De Cocq at Ulrum and Scholte at Deventer.  These men, finding that their views met with no sympathy or recognition by the synodal authorities, resolved (October 14,1834) on the serious step of separating from the Reformed Church and forming themselves and their adherents into a new church body.  They were known as “the Separatists” (de Afgescheidenen).  Though deprived of their pulpits, fined and persecuted, the Separatists grew in number.  In 1836 the government refused to recognise them as a Church, but permitted local congregations to hold meetings in houses.  In 1838 more favourable conditions were offered, which De Cocq and Scholte finally agreed to accept, but no subsidies were paid to the sect by the State.  William II, in 1842, made a further concession by allowing religious teaching to be given daily in the public schools (out of school hours) by the Separatist ministers, as well as by those of other denominations.  All this while, however, certain congregations refused to accept the compromise of 1838; and a large number, headed by a preacher named Van Raalte, in order to obtain freedom of worship, emigrated to Michigan to form the nucleus of a flourishing Dutch colony.

The accession of William II coincided with a period of political unrest, not only in Holland but throughout Europe.  A strong reaction had set in against the system of autocratic rule, which had been the marked feature of the period which followed 1815.  Liberal and progressive ideas had during the later years been making headway in Holland under the inspiring leadership of Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, at that time a professor of jurisprudence at Leyden.  He had many followers; and the cause he championed had the support of the brilliant writers and publicists, Donker-Curtius, Luzac, Potgieter, Bakhuizen van der Brink and others.  A strong demand arose for a thorough revision of the constitution.  In 1844 a body of nine members of the Second Chamber, chief amongst them Thorbecke, drew up a definite proposal for a revision; but the king expressed his dislike to it, and it was rejected.  The Van Hall ministry had meanwhile been carrying out those excellent financial measures which had saved the credit of the State, and was now endeavouring to conduct the government on opportunist lines.  But the potato famine in 1845-46 caused great distress among the labouring classes, and gave added force to the spirit of discontent in the country.  The king himself grew nervous in the presence of the revolutionary ferment spreading throughout Europe, and was more especially alarmed (February, 1848) by the sudden overthrow of the monarchy of Louis Philippe and the