ABSTRACT
In 1795, a French invasion brought an end to the Dutch Republic. The occupying French army was welcomed by the Patriots, who regarded the occupation as a liberation from the Orangist regime. The information-gathering by successive Dutch governments during this era has been studied mainly by the historians P. M. M. Klep and C. Jeurgens. The chapter presents a historical case of a state trying to achieve its goals with the aid of information-gathering. It provides a brief analysis of the government’s inquiries and the process – from the gathering of the information to its employment – in order to assess the degree to which information-gathering could function as a power resource, and to identify different expressions of power. The chapter aims to assess the significance of this resource more generally for policy-making, surveillance, and nation-building. The online database on the inquiries provides an insight into the scale and subject of the statistical activities of successive Batavian-French central governments.
