had already returned to England. A line of defence was, nevertheless,
taken up by the British under Wallmoden, by the Dutch under their
hereditary stadtholder, William V. of Orange, and by an Austrian corps
under Alvinzi; the Dutch were, however, panic-struck, and negotiated a
separate treaty with Pichegru,[2] who, at that moment, solely aimed at
separating the Dutch from their allies; but when, in December, all the
rivers and canals were suddenly frozen, and nature no longer threw
insurmountable obstacles in his path, regardless of the negotiations
then pending in Paris, he unexpectedly took up arms, marched across
the icebound waters, and carried Holland by storm. With him marched
the anti-Orangemen, the exiled Dutch patriots, under General Daendels
and Admiral de Winter, with the pretended view of restoring ancient
republican liberty to Holland and of expelling the tyrannical Orange
dynasty.

The British (and some Hessian troops) were defeated at Thiel on the
Waal; Alvinzi met with a similar fate at Pondern, and was compelled to
retreat into Westphalia. Some English ships, which lay frozen up in
the harbor, were captured by the French hussars. A most manly
resistance was made; but no aid was sent from any quarter. Prussia,
who so shortly before had ranged herself on the side of the
stadtholder against the people, was now an indifferent spectator.
William V. was compelled to flee to England. Holland was transformed
into a Batavian republic. Hahn, Hoof, etc., were the first furious
Jacobins by whom everything was there formed upon the French model.
The Dutch were compelled to cede Maestricht, Venloo, and Vliessingen;
to pay a hundred millions to France, and, moreover, to allow their
country to be plundered, to be stripped of all the splendid works of
art, pictures, etc. (as was also the case in the Netherlands and on
the Rhine), and even of the valuable museum of natural curiosities