e in London a separate peace on favourable terms,
but the partisans of France in Amsterdam and elsewhere rendered these
tentative negotiations fruitless. Being weak, the Republic suffered
accordingly by having to accept finally whatever terms its mightier
neighbour thought fit to dictate. On November 30, 1782, the preliminary
treaty by which Great Britain conceded to the United States of America
their independence was concluded. A truce between Great Britain and
France followed in January, 1783, in which the United Provinces, as a
satellite of France, were included. No further hostilities took place,
but the negotiations for a definitive peace dragged on, the protests of
the Dutch plenipotentiaries at Paris against the terms arranged
between England and France being of no avail. Finally the French
government concluded a separate peace on September 3; but it was not
till May 20, 1784, that the Dutch could be induced to surrender
Negapatam and to grant to the English the right of free entry into the
Moluccas. Nor was this the only humiliation the Republic had at this
time to suffer, for during the course of the English war serious
troubles with the Emperor Joseph II had arisen.

Joseph had in 1780 paid a visit to his Belgian provinces, and he had
seen with his own eyes the ruinous condition of the barrier fortresses.
On the pretext that the fortresses were now useless, since France and
the Republic were allies, Joseph informed the States-General of his
intention to dismantle them all with the exception of Antwerp and
Luxemburg. This meant of course the withdrawal of the Dutch garrisons.
The States-General, being unable to resist, deemed it the wiser course
to submit. The troops accordingly left the barrier towns in January,
1782. Such submission, as was to be expected, inevitably led to further
demands.

The Treaty of Muenster (1648) had left the Dutch in possession of
territory on both banks of the Scheldt, and had given them the right to
close all access by river to Antwerp, which had for a century and a
quarter ceased to be a sea-port. In 1781, during his visit to Belgium,
Joseph had received a number of petitions in favour of the liberation
of the Scheldt. At the moment he did not see his way to taking action,
but in 1783 he took advantage of the embarrassments of the Dutch
government to raise the question of a disputed boundary in Dutch
Flanders; and in the autumn of that year a body of Imperial troops took
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