ABSTRACT
The French revolutionaries acted first, and on February 1st 1793 the convention declared war against the king of England and the Dutch stadtholder. During 1793 Anglo-Dutch armies fought the French in Belgium and in French Flanders under the atrocious generalship of the duke of York. The particularism which had characterised the Dutch in the past showed itself in the separate agreement which the people of Zeeland made with the invader. The federalists represented the tradition of the Dutch Republic and still more the conflict of material interests which had characterised it throughout its history. The rapprochement between orangism and the national idea revealed itself for the first time in 1799, when an Anglo-Russian army landed on the Dutch coast. The Dutch army took part in the resistance against this invasion, but the Batavian government ventured to throw out some careful feelers in the direction of an orangist restoration.
