Background
The final days of the Dutch Republic were quite eventful. Due to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War that went disastrously for the Dutch, the Patriot party staged a revolt against the authoritarian regime of stadtholder William V that was struck down through the intervention of William's brother-in-law Frederick William II of Prussia in June 1787. Most Patriots went into exile in France, while the Ancien Régime strengthened its grip on the government through the Orangist Grand Pensionary Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel.
Only a few years later, the French Revolution began, which embraced many of the political ideas that the Patriots had espoused in their own revolt. The Patriots enthusiastically supported the Revolution, and when the French revolutionary armies started to spread that revolution, the Patriots joined in, hoping to liberate their own country from its authoritarian yoke. The Stadtholder joined the First Coalition of countries in their attempt to subdue revolutionary France.
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“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
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