ABSTRACT

Students in the early modern period, in general, were not involved in 'real' politics. Sometimes they took up arms together with the townsmen to protect the town in times of danger. Student violence for other reasons was more common. In some periods, it was almost daily routine to smash windows and beat up citizens. In the beginning of 1783, political tensions grew when the town council of Utrecht tried to forbid the critical Post of the Lower Rhine. The Patriot movement felt itself endangered and demanded the right to form a so-called 'exercise society', such as already existed in other towns of the Dutch Republic. The student in Utrecht who was most at the forefront of this movement was Pieter Philip Jurriaan Quint Ondaatje, better known as Quint Ondaatje. He was born in Colombo, in Ceylon, to the son of a vicar who originated from Ceylon itself, and to a Dutch mother, and had graduated in artes liberales, in 1782.