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English Travel Writers’ Representations of Freedom in the United Provinces, c. 1670–1795
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 September 2023
Abstract
From the Second Anglo-Dutch War to the fall of the United Provinces (c. 1670–1795), dozens of English writers published accounts of their travels across the North Sea. The English and the Dutch were bound by centuries of intellectual, political, and cultural interaction. Factors like a shared confession and similar economic structures meant that Anglo-Dutch relations were uniquely intimate, and this close relationship allowed a nuanced and complex exploration of political ideas. This article recreates one of those ideas that was repeated so often in English travel writing: that the Dutch Republic was free. This freedom was presented as a Faustian pact. In practice, the Dutch state guaranteed many freedoms that the English lauded, such as the right to property, to government accountability, and to efficient justice. However, English writers disdained the theories that underpinned these freedoms, which were viewed as egalitarian and republican. It was argued that these suspect doctrines led the United Provinces down the path to licentiousness, luxury, and decline. Paradoxically, therefore, the nature of Dutch freedom determined both the country’s rise and its fall.
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References
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12 The United Provinces was widely seen as part of the Grand Tour; see Richard Lassels, The voyage of Italy: or compleat journey through Italy; in two parts: with the characters of the people, and the description of the chief townes, churches, monasteries, tombes, libraries, pallaces, villas, gardens, pictures, statues, antiquities: and also of interest, government, riches, forces, &c. of all the princes (Paris, 1670), preface; Nugent, Grand Tour, I, p. vii.
13 One contemporary view: Onslow Burrish, Batavia illustrata: or, a view of the policy and commerce of the United Provinces (2nd edn, London, 1742), p. 322. A number of handbooks for English merchants in Holland were published, such as William Banson, The complete exchanger, containing tables of exchange for the ready and exact computing of any sum of money remitted from Great Britain to Holland, and from Holland, to Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, &c. (London, 1717). A discussion of the impact of trading exchanges on economic thought is in Seiichiro Ito, English economic thought in the seventeenth century: rejecting the Dutch model (New York, NY, 2021).
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16 Many texts were published during William III’s reign celebrating the fusing of the two countries under one monarch, for example: R. W. Happy union of England and Holland: or, the advantagious consequences of the alliance of the crown of Great Britain with the States General of the United Provinces (London, 1689). The extent and consequences of Anglo-Dutch exchange in William III’s reign has been discussed in Jonathan Israel, ed., The Anglo-Dutch moment: essays on the Glorious Revolution and its world impact (Cambridge, 1991); and Dale Hoak and Mordechai Feingold, eds., The world of William and Mary: Anglo-Dutch perspectives on the Revolution of 1688–1689 (Stanford, CA, 1996). Later, the Barrier Treaties (1709, 1713, 1715) effectively made the Dutch and English mutual guarantors of one another’s security, a point famously lambasted in Jonathan Swift, The conduct of the Allies, and of the late ministry. In beginning and carrying on the present war (4th edn, London, 1712); see John Oldmixon, The Dutch barrier our’s: or the interest of England and Holland inseparable (London, 1712) for the alternative view. The closeness of the two states was a point laboured by English writers haranguing the Dutch to enter into closer alignment with the English: for two examples see The present state of British influence in Holland (London, 1742), and, later, John Andrews, Letters to His Excellency the Count De Welderen, on the present situation of affairs between Great Britain and the United Provinces (London, 1781).
17 Gijs Rommelse, ‘Dutch naval decline and British sea-power in the eighteenth century’, The Mariner’s Mirror, 106 (2020), pp. 146–61; Alison Games, Inventing the English massacre: Amboyna in history and memory (Oxford, 2020).
18 Williams, Rise, progress, and present, I, p. 2; Walter Harris, A new history of the life and reign of William-Henry prince of Orange and Nassau; king of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, &c. (4 vols., Dublin, 1747), I, p. 71. The extent to which there existed a ‘pan-Protestant’ identity is contentious; see Andrew C. Thompson, Britain, Hanover and the Protestant interest (London, 2006).
19 Leerssen, ‘Imagology’, p. 27.
20 For recent work that explores Anglo-Dutch liminality, see Lisa Jardine, Going Dutch: how England plundered Holland’s glory (London, 2008); Margorie Rubright, Doppelgänger dilemmas: Anglo-Dutch relations in early modern English literature and culture (Philadelphia, PA, 2014); Hugh Dunthorne, Britain and the Dutch Revolt, 1560–1700 (Cambridge, 2013); Helmer J. Helmers, The Royalist Republic: literature, politics, and religion in the Anglo-Dutch public sphere, 1639–1660 (Cambridge, 2015); Sjoerd Levelt and Ad Putter, eds., North Sea crossings: the literary heritage of Anglo-Dutch relations, 1066–1688 (Oxford, 2021).
21 Authors’ prefaces regularly cited their intention to educate the upper classes and their children: Robert Poole, A journey from London, to France and Holland: or, the traveller’s useful Vade Mecum (2 vols., London, 1744), II, p. i; Lassels, Voyage of Italy, preface.
22 For three recent general studies on the intersection of political ideas, practices, and cultures in Britain, see Mark Knights, Representation and misrepresentation in later Stuart Britain: partisanship and political culture (Oxford, 2005); Max Skjönsberg, The persistence of party: ideas of harmonious discord in eighteenth-century Britain (Cambridge, 2021); Ross Carroll, Uncivil mirth: ridicule in Enlightenment Britain (Princeton, NJ, 2021). For an overview on literacy, see Paul Langford, A polite and commercial people: England, 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 90–9. Specifically on literacy and travel guides, see Paul Stock, Europe and the British geographical imagination (Oxford, 2019), pp. 18–28.
23 Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces, p. 208.
24 Peckham, Tour through Holland, p. 33.
25 Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces, p. 130.
26 Claydon, Europe, pp. 132–52, discusses this in relation to English war propaganda.
27 William Carr, An accurate description of the United Netherlands, and of the most considerable parts of Germany, Sweden, & Denmark (London, 1691), p. 50.
28 Burrish, Baravia illustrata, p. 123.
29 Williams, Rise, progress, and present, I, p. 109.
30 Pieter de la Court, The true interest and political maxims of the republick of Holland and West-Friesland. Said to be written by John de Witt and other great men in Holland. Published by the authority of the state (London, 1702), p. 36.
31 Marshall, Travels through Holland, I, p. 288.
32 Carr, Accurate description, pp. 45–9.
33 Nugent, Grand Tour, I, p. 90.
34 Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, a dictionary of arts, sciences, &c. on a plan entirely new: by which, the different sciences and arts are digested into the form of distinct treatises or systems, comprehending the history, theory, and practice of each, according to the latest discoveries and improvements (2nd edn, 10 vols., Edinburgh, 1778), X, p. 8752.
35 Marshall, Travels through Holland, I, pp. 190–1.
36 The history of the republick of Holland, from its first foundation to the death of King William (2 vols., London, 1705), II, p. 87.
37 Ibid.
38 Joseph Shaw, Letters to a nobleman from a gentleman travelling thro’ Holland, Flanders and France (London, 1709), pp. vi–vii.
39 Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces, pp. 128–9.
40 Ibid., p. 102.
41 Charles Burney, The present state of music in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Provinces (2nd edn, 2 vols., London, 1775), II, p. 286.
42 Charles-Lewis de Pollnitz, The memoirs of Charles-Lewis, baron de Pollnitz (2nd edn, 2 vols., London, 1739), II, p. 371.
43 Burrish, Baravia illustrata, p. 284.
44 Harris, New history, p. 60.
45 Ann Radcliffe, A journey made in the summer of 1794, through Holland and the western frontier of Germany (London, 1795), p. 11.
46 History of the republick, p. 164.
47 Ibid., p. 167.
48 An hasty sketch of a tour through part of the Austrian Netherlands, and great part of Holland, made in the year 1785 (London, 1787), pp. 228–9.
49 Becket, Trip to Holland, II, p. 142.
50 Peckham, Tour through Holland, p. 80.
51 Samuel Ireland, A picturesque tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France, made in the autumn of 1789 (2nd edn, London, 1796), p. 25.
52 William Montague, The delights of Holland: or, a three months travel about that and the other provinces. With observations and reflections on their trade, wealth, strength, beauty, policy, &c. together with a catalogue of the rarities in the Anatomical School at Leyden (London, 1696), p. 138.
53 The present state of Holland, or a description of the United Provinces (3rd edn, The Hague, Rotterdam, and Leiden, 1749), pp. vi–vii.
54 A new description, p. 74.
55 Montague, Delights of Holland, pp. 169–70.
56 Nugent, Grand Tour, I, p. 79.
57 Carr, Accurate description, p. 50.
58 Shaw, Letters to a nobleman, pp. 38–9.
59 Ibid., pp. 39–40.
60 Nugent, Grand Tour, I, p. 81.
61 Maximillian Misson, A new voyage to Italy (5th edn, 2 vols., London, 1739), I, p. 29.
62 Ireland, A picturesque tour, p. 136.
63 Peckham, Tour through Holland, p. 63.
64 Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces, pp. 219–21.
65 Williams, Rise, progress, and present, I, p. 105.
66 William O’Reilly, ‘The Naturalization Act of 1709 and the settlement of Germans in Britain, Ireland and the colonies’, in Randolph Vigne and Charles Littleton, eds., From strangers to citizens: the integration of immigrant communities in Britain, Ireland and colonial America, 1550–1750 (London, 2001), pp. 492–502.
67 A tour sentimental and descriptive, through the United Provinces, Austrian Netherlands, and France (2 vols., London, 1788), I, p. 87.
68 The best general introduction is Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: its rise, greatness, and fall, 1477–1806 (New York, NY, 1995); Orangism was analysed in Charles-Edward Levillain, ‘William III’s military and political career in neo-Roman context, 1672–1702’, Historical Journal, 48 (2005), pp. 321–50.
69 For a general view on how Dutch politics was split between the pro-English Stadtholder party and the pro-French republican party, see Radcliffe, A journey made, pp. 41–2. For a late seventeenth-century perspective, see A true account of a late horrid conspiracy to betray Holland to the French (London, 1690). As an example of Dutch and English contemporaries seeing the extent to which the English sided with the Stadtholder during the Patriot Revolt, see Thomas Bowdler, Letters written in Holland, in the months of September and October, 1787 (London, 1788), pp. 133–89.
70 Historical remarques upon the late revolutions in the United Provinces; drawn from their own papers, and evincing the necessity of a Stadtholder to that government, as now re-establish’d in His Highness, the present prince of Orange (London, 1675), pp. 11–15.
71 Preface author unknown, Abbé Raynal, The history of the office of Stadtholder, from its origin to the present times (London, 1787), p. iii.
72 John Andrews, A defence of the Stadtholdership; wherein the necessity of that office in the United Provinces is demonstrated (London, 1787), p. 2.
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75 De Pollnitz, Memoirs, II, pp. 381–2.
76 Lassels, Voyage of Italy, preface.
77 Harris, New history, pp. 59–60.
78 Samuel von Pufendorf, An introduction to the history of the principal kingdoms and states of Europe, trans. J. Crull (6th edn, London, 1706), p. 241.
79 Owen Felltham, A trip to Holland, being a description of the country, people and manners: as also some selection observations on Amsterdam (1699), pp. 7–8.
80 De Pollnitz, Memoirs, II, pp. 381–2.
81 Felltham, Trip to Holland, p. 11.
82 Tour sentimental and descriptive, I, p. 114.
83 Sacheverell Stevens, Miscellaneous remarks made on the spot, in a late seven years tour through France, Italy, Germany and Holland (London, 1756), p. 388.
84 De la Court, True interest, p. xxvii.
85 Burnet, Collection of speeches, p. 12.
86 Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces, p. 238.
87 For example, Marshall, Travels through Holland, I, pp. 151–6.
88 Some examples: Ireland, A picturesque tour, p. 89; Becket, Trip to Holland, I, pp. 153–4; Peckham, Tour through Holland, p. 55; Isaiah Thomas, A tour in Holland (Worcester, MA, 1790), p. 105.
89 Williams, Rise, progress, and present, I, p. 134.
90 Edward Gibbon, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire (6 vols., London, 1776–89); J. G. A. Pocock, Barbarism and religion (6 vols., Cambridge, 1999–2015).
91 Bernard Mandeville, The fable of the bees: or, private vices, public benefits (London, 1714); Bernard Mandeville, The fable of the bees, part II. By the author of the first (London, 1730). See further E. J. Hundert, The Enlightenment’s fable: Bernard Mandeville and the discovery of society (New York, NY, 1994).
92 Shaw, Letters to a nobleman, p. 49.
93 Williams, Rise, progress, and present, I, pp. 80–5.
94 Present state of Holland, pp. 90–100.
95 Marshall, Travels through Holland, I, p. 338; Williams, Rise, progress, and present, I, p. 74; Nugent, Grand Tour, I, p. 44.
96 Marshall, Travels through Holland, I, pp. 19–20.
97 Ibid., I, p. 186.
98 Williams, Rise, progress, and present, I, p. 78.
99 Nugent, Grand Tour, I, p. 42.
100 van der Heuvel, Danielle, Women and entrepreneurship: female traders in the northern Netherlands c. 1580–1815 (Utrecht, 2007)Google Scholar; Peacock, Martha Moffitt, Heroines, harpies, and housewives: imagining women of consequence in the Dutch Golden Age (Leiden, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
101 Shaw, Letters to a nobleman, pp. 44–7.
102 The comical pilgrim; or, travels of a cynick philosopher, thro’ the most wicked parts of the world (London, 1722), p. 101.
103 Montague, Delights of Holland, pp. 183–4.
104 Ibid., pp. 218–19.
105 Thomas, Tour in Holland, p. 132.
106 Peckham, Tour through Holland, pp. 70–1.
107 Nugent, Grand Tour, I, p. 81.
108 De Pollnitz, Memoirs, p. 381.
109 History of the republick, pp. 166–7.
110 The interplay between these climate and other factors is explored in Justin E. H. Smith, Nature, human nature, and human difference: race in early modern philosophy (Princeton, NJ, 2015).
111 Two examples: Radcliffe, A journey made, p. 34; Shaw, Letters to a nobleman, p. xvi.
112 Marshall, Travels through Holland, I, p. 44.
113 Felltham, Trip to Holland, p. 3.
114 Misson, A new voyage, I, pp. 4–5.
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116 Mary Wortley Montagu, Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W---y M----e; written, during her travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, to persons of distinction, men of letters, &c. in different parts of Europe, which contain, among other curious relations, accounts of the policy and manners of the Turks; drawn from sources that have been inaccessible to other travellers (4 vols., London, 1763), I, pp. 2–5.
117 Tour sentimental and descriptive, I, p. 117.
118 De Pollnitz, Memoirs, II, p. 370.
119 In favour of religious liberty: Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces, pp. 199–200; Burrish, Batavia illustrata, p. 144; Aglionby, Present state, pp. 177–8. Against: Montague, Delights of Holland, pp. 142–3.
120 Burney, Present state; Cayley, Cornelius, A tour through Holland, Flanders, and part of France (2nd edn, Leeds, 1777), p. iiiGoogle Scholar; Bowdler, Letters written in Holland, p. 3; Carr, Accurate description, p. 2.