The Holland Society of New York - Yearbook (New York, NY)

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I42 Capellen-J ' a democrat who sought to keep clean hands. From the letters of John Adams, Trum- bull, and Livingston we gain an insight into the sympathetic spirit of these and other allies. Six months before the Declaration of Independence the lending of the Scotch Brigade to the King of England for service in America as a mark v of friendship was opposed. If the Brigade crossed the Channel, it was not to undertake foreign duty. And the identity of the Dutch patriots with the colonists is ,seen in Capellen's arraignment of William V., where he threatens: Let all be ready, every man with his musket ,... and let them follow the example of America where not a drop of blood was shed till the English struck the first blow, and Jehovah will support our righteous cause. CG'1feat applausej Adams reached Amsterdam A in August, 178o,+ a forlorn pilgrim, -to negotiate a loan. John Luzac and Capellen, with a few other' ' mad men, aided him, A memorial had been addressed to the States-General Cr78oj demanding recognition, and the Stadtholder received Adams as Envoy. Recognition of the United States followed. The financial .mission succeeded, and five millions of guilders were sent to America when the credit of the country was in peril. Concerning these events Capellen wrote: D The Dutch really deserve the affection, even the gratitude of America, as it is here the people who have forced the government to .declare her independence and conclude the a1l1ance.',' Mr. Adams declared that this treaty Was the event which turned the scale of the ReV01uti0111'Y War and produced the peace of 1783. Well might our representative rejoice that

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I4 I i11gtQ11 at Valley Forge, there was the Polish Pa'C1'10t, K0SCi11SkO, WhO at last fell when strug4 gling against the tyranny of Rusgiag A Hope for a season bade the world farewell, V And freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell. And there were the Frenchmen, Baron de Kalb who lost his life at the battle of Camden for the rights of the people, and La Fayette, the hero of two worlds and the Bayard of Liberty. QGreat applausej Q ' y But these were men of war-and not less de- serving of renown than the men of' peace who labored with their governments that the Amer- ican cause might triumph. There were leaders in England, of whom Burke may be taken as a lofty example, who championed the principles under- lying the Revolution. p How inspiring his declaraa tion: T o govern according to the sense and agreeably to the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of government, -a sentiment that may have to be learned anew on this aside of the Atlantic. Also immortal the saying: 0ur constitution stands on a nice equipoise with steep precipices and deep waters upon all sides of it. In removing it from a dangerous leaning towards one side there may be risk of oversetting it on the other. But while similar friends may he found in France and Prussia, it was in Holland--the country we are concerned with-where they 'were most numerous and where their services were most vital to the cause of freedom. QAppZcmse.D Among these menwho stretched out their hands across the sea were Noodt, Van der Kessel, Van der Kemp, John Luzac, and Baron Van der

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. 143 he had been enabled to plant the standard of the United States at The Hague, and well might he hope that the value of the service rendered by Holland, already .discounted in his day, might come to be recognized and appreciated, and well may we on this festive night acknowledge our in- debtedness to a race who. not only laid the founda- tions of New Amsterdam, but who added the capstone to our temple of liberty. Cflpplausej A little country with a great heart runs the toast. Truly, only a speck of land, with much of it water, and yet a land that shares with the smaller nations, such as Greece and Britain, in shaping and influencing the progress of mankind. A great heart seen in her ceaseless conflict with the sea, whose inroads she has not only checked, but on whose proud. domain she has gained. What Canute the King could not do with his royalty, the Dutch have accomplished by their honest work. A great heart, yes-seen in her resistance of her tyrannical Burgundian Dukes, in her heroic devotion to the Batavian Republic, in her ,prompt assistance rendered .England when the Spanish Armada threatened Elizabeth, by blockading Parma and his invading army, great in her strug- gle for religious liberty against the coercive power of Spain, in which she won a victory, not only for Protestants, but for Catholics as well, for had Holland failed, the Roman Church might 11013 have enjoyed the freedom she now enjoys in the United States, and great in her heroes, in her john of Barneveldt, in her William of Orange, who WHS assassinated in I 584, described as an earlier Wash- ington, fapplcmsej and in that other William, the husband of Mary of the Stuart lineage, and painted k 1 , I