In the summer of 1823, two students – Jacob van Lennep and Dirk van Hogendorp, aged 21 and 25, respectively – decided to make a long trek through the Netherlands. It was a kind of inspection tour of the country, which, since Napoleon had been driven out in 1813, had existed for a decade as the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They set out in the final week of May and arrived at the beginning of July at a number of simple settlements, located in the middle of an otherwise somewhat barren region of peat and moorland in the north-eastern Netherlands. These were ‘colonies’ that had been established by the Society of Benevolence (Maatschappij der Weldadigheid). The Society had set itself the goal of fighting poverty in the Netherlands by having paupers develop desolate areas, thereby giving them an opportunity to work their way up to being independent tenant farmers. The mood of the walkers may well have suffered due the bad weather – it was cold in those days and rained constantly – but they were deeply distrustful of the fine tales of the colonies that were doing the rounds, and what they witnessed confirmed their suspicions.

For one thing, they were not pleased that all of the colonists were obliged to attend church on Sundays, something that they saw as ‘religious coercion’. Moreover, the church service started much too late and the behaviour of the churchgoers left much to be desired. The pastor preached on Psalm 126 – ‘Those who sow with tears will reap songs of joy’ – an appropriate text, given the circumstances. He proved to be ‘very Reformed, but too florid, which meant that he sometimes didn't make sense’. Despite attempts to convince the students of the fine ‘civilizing labour’ that was being done there, they largely saw the downsides. For example, they thought the education being given to the colony's children was much too broad. What, they asked themselves, was the use of geography, national history and stylistic exercises to people who were