to establish a representative and
republican government. The majority of the States General were with
them, but the majority of the populace of the towns was with the Prince
of Orange; and that populace was played off with great effect by the
triumvirate of * * * Harris, the English Ambassador, afterwards Lord
Malmesbury, the Prince of Orange, a stupid man, and the Princess, as
much a man as either of her colleagues, in audaciousness, in enterprise,
and in the thirst of domination. By these, the mobs of the Hague were
excited against the members of the States General; their persons were
insulted, and endangered in the streets; the sanctuary of their houses
was violated; and the Prince, whose function and duty it was to repress
and punish these violations of order, took no steps for that purpose.
The States General, for their own protection, were therefore obliged to
place their militia under the command of a Committee. The Prince filled
the courts of London and Berlin with complaints at this usurpation of
his prerogatives, and, forgetting that he was but the first servant of a
Republic, marched his regular troops against the city of Utrecht, where
the States were in session. They were repulsed by the militia. His
interests now became marshaled with those of the public enemy, and
against his own country. The States, therefore, exercising their rights
of sovereignty, deprived him of all his powers. The great Frederic
had died in August, '86. He had never intended to break with France in
support of the Prince of Orange. During the illness of which he died,
he had, through the Duke of Brunswick, declared to the Marquis de
la Fayette, who was then at Berlin, that he meant not to support the
English interest in Holland: that he might assure the government of
France, his only wish was, that some honorable place in the Constitution
should be reserved for the Stadtholder and his children, and that he
would take no part in the quarrel, unless an entire abolition of the
Stadtholderate should be attempted. But his place was now occupied by
Frederic William, his great nephew, a man of little understanding, much
caprice, and very inconsiderate: and the Princess, his sister, although
her husband was in arms against the legitimate authorities of the
country, attempting to go to Amsterdam, for the purpose of exciting the
mobs of that place, and being refused permission to pass a military post
on the way, he put the Duke of Brunswick at th