They reminded the general government that by the 1st article of the “Closer Union” of Utrecht, on which that assembly was founded, it was bound to support the States of the respective provinces and strengthen them with counsel, treasure, and blood if their respective rights, more especially their individual sovereignty, the most precious of all, should be assailed.  To refrain from so doing would be to violate a solemn contract.  They further reminded the council of state that by its institution the States-Provincial had not abdicated their respective sovereignties, but had reserved it in all matters not specifically mentioned in the original instruction by which it was created.

Two days afterwards Arnold van Randwyck and three other commissioners were instructed by the general government to confer with the States of Utrecht, to tell them that their reply was deemed unsatisfactory, that their reasons for levying soldiers in times when all good people should be seeking to restore harmony and mitigate dissension were insufficient, and to request them to disband those levies without prejudice in so doing to the laws and liberties of the province and city of Utrecht.

Here was perhaps an opening for a compromise, the instruction being not without ingenuity, and the word sovereignty in regard either to the general government or the separate provinces being carefully omitted.  Soon afterwards, too, the States-General went many steps farther in the path of concession, for they made another appeal to the government of Utrecht to disband the Waartgelders on the ground of expediency, and in so doing almost expressly admitted the doctrine of provincial sovereignty.  It is important in regard to subsequent events to observe this virtual admission.

“Your Honours lay especial stress upon the right of sovereignty as belonging to you alone in your province,” they said, “and dispute therefore at great length upon the power and authority of the Generality, of his Excellency, and of the state council.  But you will please to consider that there is here no question of this, as our commissioners had no instructions to bring this into dispute in the least, and most certainly have not done so.  We have only in effect questioned whether that which one has an undoubted right to do can at all times be appropriately and becomingly done, whether it was fitting that your Honours, contrary to custom, should undertake these new levies upon a special oath and commission, and effectively complete the measure without giving the slightest notice thereof to the Generality.”

It may fairly be said that the question in debate was entirely conceded in this remarkable paper, which was addressed by the States-General, the Prince-Stadholder, and the council of state to the government of Utrecht.  It should be observed, too, that while distinctly repudiating the intention of disputing the sovereignty of that province, they carefully abstain from using the word in relation to themselves, speaking only of the might and authority of the Generality, the Prince, and the council.