ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the language employed by a group of Dutch reformers, the economic patriots. To analyse the rhetorical strategies used by this movement, it focuses on the key terms and the figurative speech proponents employed to describe their aspirations and to bring about a controlled change for the better. The chapter shows how they presented their novel ideas about the economic life as a restoration of a formerly ideal order and how they utilised the concept of the fatherland to change the behaviour of their fellow-citizens. Thereby, it becomes possible to reconsider the relationship between the economic reforms proposed in the 1770s and the political revolution demanded in the 1780s and 1790s.
