Thirty-seven years of Holland-American relations 1803 to 1840

Dedication

To Professor B. K. Kuiper of Calvin College, who first inspired me with a love for the historical sciences, and to that most modest of historical scholars, Professor E. W. Dow of the University of Michigan, to whom I owe a valuable training in historical method, these pages are affectionately inscribed. May they continue to inspire large numbers of their students to worship at the shrine of history.

Copyrighted 1917. by P. Hoekitra

Preface

The task of collecting material for this monograph was begun in the summer of 1913, partly at the suggestion of Dr. W. E. Lingelbach of the University of Pennsylvania. My original plan was to treat the subject of spoliation claims against Holland, but the material proved to be entirely inadequate. The reasons for enlarging the scope of the work, so as to make it cover the years 1803 to 1840, are set f orth in the Introduction.

A part of the manuscript was read by Dr. Lingelbach and by Dr. Frank E. Melvin, then a Harrison research Fellow in history at the University of Pennsylvania, now assistant professor in history in the Kansas State University. I owe much to their helpful criticism and encouragement, as well as to their active assistance. Dr. Lingelbach kindly consented to collect for me the documents from the British Foreign Office which have been utilized in Chapter V., while Dr. Melvin generously loaned me material from British and French archives, to which circumstances prevented me from procuring access. To the members of Dr. Lingelbach's Seminary on the Continental System I am indebted for much useful information, which enabled me to give a broader setting to Chapters II. and III. than would otherwise have been possible. A word of thanks is also due to Dr. R. Fruin, chief archivist of the Rijks-Archief at The Hague, and to his able staff of assistants.

Contents

Chapter Pages

I. Introduction 1 — 15

II. A Period of Prosperity for the American

Introduction

During the past three centuries several lines of connection, more or less important according to one's point of view, have existed between The Netherlands and the American continent. The earliest and best known of these Holland- American relations dates from the year 1609, when the discoveries of an English sea captain, Henry Hudson, in the employ of a Dutch commercial company, established for the Republic of Holland a claim to the region which came to be known as New Netherland, lying between the Delaware and Connecticut rivers. Discovery was followed by occupation ; trading stations were founded to develop the new line of trade with the Indians, and colonists were sent in to found settlements along the Hudson or to find employment on the semi-feudal estates of the patroons. In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was organized, with supreme power of governing the newly acquired region in the name of the Estates General.

Dutch rule in America, however, abruptly came to an end in 1664, when New Netherland was surrendered to the English. For more than a century after this date all direct commercial intercourse between Holland and her former colony was effectually prevented by the operation of the British Navigation Acts. During this period, also, emigration from Holland practically ceased. However, the maintenance of ecclesiastical relations still constituted a somewhat feeble bond of union between the Hollanders in the new world and those in the old. In fact, the establishment of the Reformed Church may be considered the main permanent result of this period, for this religious organization exists and thrives after the lapse of three centuries. Yet, isolated as they were in other respects, the few thousand Hollanders in New York and New Jersey influenced the life of these colonies for several generations. With the conservatism which has ever characterized the race, they retained their own customs and their language was still spoken at the close of the American Revolution. x)

Of more importance to our national history than the ineffectual attempts at colonization was the series of relations — commercial, financial and political — established during the Revolutionary period. Relations with Holland were re-opened through the operation of the same factor which had originally brought the Dutch in contact with the American continent. Hope of gain, and the desire to injure their trade rivals, the English, induced the Dutch to carry on an illicit trade with the American colonies during the war, and this in turn paved the way for the commercial treaty of 1782, under which a flourishing trade soon sprang up. Holland also added to our prestige abroad by her recognition of American independence, and she followed up this step by sending an accredited minister as early as 1783 — an honor which the United States did not return until 1790. The loans which the Dutch offered to the national government at the time of our greatest financial distress were another mark of esteem and confidence, which cemented the bonds of friendship between the two countries. 2 > And for more than a century our relations with Holland have in the main been characterized by the same friendly spirit which is noticeable in the early years of our national existence.

Travel and immigration offered yet a fourth line of connection. Among the most distinguished of the early Dutch travelers was the later statesman Gij sbert Karel Van Hogendorp, whose eager curiosity to obtain a first-hand knowledge of our institutions induced him to accompany the squadron which, in 1783, conveyed the Dutch minister Van Berckel to the United States. His name deserves mention not only for the interesting comments on men and events which he has

1) Francis Adriaan Van der Kemp, who reached New York from Holland in 1788, notes that Mrs. Tappan, Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Hamilton conversed with Mrs. Van der Kemp in Dutch, "This was unexpected and enhanced yet farther the high value of their numerous favors." Autobiography, 91-2, Ms. copy in Pa. Hist. Society.

2) In so far as these relations fall within the Revolutionary period they have recently been discussed in Frederick Edler's study, The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution, in Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies, Series 29, No. 20.

left us,1) but also for the part which he played, in 1814, in re-opening diplomatic intercourse between the two countries. The failure of the so-called Patriot uprising, in 1787, brought to this country the first small band of immigrants. Easily foremost among them was the former Mennonite pastor Francis Adriaan Van der Kemp, whom John Adams, his intimate friend, characterizes as "a great man, a star of first magnitude." 2) "Had he been as great a master of our language as he was of his own," he writes on another occasion, "he would at this day have been one of the most conspicuous characters in the United States." 3) De Witt Clinton was equally impressed with his talents. "In a secluded, unassuming village," he wrote in 1820, "I have discovered the most learned man in America." 4)

Van der Kemp, together with Adam G. Mappa, Gerrit C. Boon and others, became connected with the Holland Land Company, an association organized in 1790 by a number of Dutch financiers, who chose to invest a portion of their capital in American land. Among the original founders of this company — six in number — there are three who deserve mention. Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck was then a rising young lawyer at Amsterdam, and later became Grand Pensionary of Holland. His name will receive frequent mention in the following pages. Nicholas Van Staphorst and Willem Willinck were connected with prominent banking houses at Amsterdam, which for many years carried on the banking operations which the American government conducted with Holland.5 > Yet, although conditions in Holland were unusually

a) F. de B. Van Hogendorp, Brieven en Gedenkschriften van G. K. Van Hogendorp, I., 244 et. seq.

2) John Adams, Works, x., 22, Adams to S. B. Malcolm.

3) Ibid., x., 224, Adams to Jefferson, 1816.

4) Quoted in Helen Lincklaen Fairchild, Fr. Adriaan Van der Kemp, 185.

5) The names of the founders are attached to a Memorial to the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in connection with one of the numerous ejectment suits instituted against the company. (Pamphlet, Pennsylvania Hist. Society, no date.) In this memorial the reason for the organization of

the company is briefly given as follows: "Having acquired

considerable estates, and perceiving great troubles about to coime upon our country, a natural sentiment inclined us to place a part, at least, of our property beyond the vicissitudes of civil dissentions and revolutionary government. Attached as iwe were to the cause of liberty in Holland, with this view we turned our thoughts to America, confidently believing that whatever was precious to us in interest or affection, would best be secured among a virtuous people whose government was republican "

favorable for emigration, owing to the dissatisfaction with French influence and to the growing economic distress which followed upon the establishment of the Continental System, only a small number of Dutch Settlers were induced to occupy the company's land in western New York and Pennsylvania.

Toward the middle of the century came a more numerous and more influential group of immigrants. Indeed, the total number of Dutch who had come to these shores between 1609 and 1846 was after all but a Gideon's band in comparison with these newcomers. As in other movements of a similar kind in the course of American history, an economic motive was not entirely lacking in this case, but the religious factor should receive a far stronger emphasis than the economic. The pioneers of this movement have, not inaptly, been called the Pilgrim Fathers of the West. They were Seceders (AFGESCHEIDENEN) from the Established Reformed Church, who refused longer to endure the petty persecutions to which they were subjected. The religious character of the movement is shown by the fact that whole congregations were transplanted. The vanguard passed the winter of 1846- '47 at New York, where they still met fellowcountrymen with whom they could converse in their native language. But their destination was farther West. Passing along the Erie Canal in open flat-boats, they then wound their way along the Great Lakes, and disembarked on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, near Black Lake. During the same year another party traveled westward from Baltimore, and, after a long and tedious journey by land and water, settled on the prairies of Iowa. In either case immigration was conducted under the leadership of their respective pastors. In 1849 the Dutch colony in the forests of western Michigan numbered some 3,000 souls, scattered about in several communities which have ever since retained the typical Dutch names then conferred upon them, — in Hoiland, Groningen, Zeeland, Overisel, Drenthe, Graafschap and Vriesland.1)

From that day to this, immigration from the Netherlands, generally speaking, has continued without interruption, though it has long since lost its religious character. It is particularly during the last six decades, then, that the Dutch have contributed their share toward the making of the American nation, small though that share may be compared with the contributions made by the Irish, the German, the Latin and the Slav. A study of this movement as a whole would, no doubt, reveal the Dutch immigrant at his best; through his industry many a square mile of our virgin soil has been brought under cultivation, and in his advance westward he has ever carried with him the church and the school, with all that these institutions imply. At the present day larger or smaller communities of them are to be found in each of the northern tier of states from New York to Washington, and in at least a dozen states to the south of this line. Outside of the main areas, however, which roughly centre around Paterson, N. J. ; Rochester, N. Y. ; Grand Rapids, Mich. ; Chicago, 111. ; and Pella and Sioux Centre, Iowa, their numbers are so insignificant as almost to escape notice. It is only in western Michigan and in Iowa that they

J) Two original pamphlets by leaders of this movement are to be found in the Royal Library at The Hague :

Brummelkamp, Rev. A., Holland in Amerika — de Hollandsche Kolonizatie in den Staat Michigan.

Scholte, Rev. H. P., Een Stem uit Pella, 1848. A translation of this, by Jacob Van der Zee, appears in the Iowa Journal of History and Politics, vol. IX., (1911), pp. 528-574. In vol. X. of the Iowa Journal, pp. 363-381, Van der Zee gives a translation of John Hosper's Diary of a Journey from the Netherlands to Pella, Iowa, in 1849.

Among the best secondary accounts are :

1. Versteeg, D., De Pel grim Vaders van het West en, Grand Rapids, 1886.

2. Dosker, Rev. Henry E., Levensschets van Rev. A. C. Van Raalte, Nykerk, 1893.

3. Cole, Cyrenus, Pella — A Bit of Holland in the New World, in Annals of Iowa, vol. III., 3rd Series (Jan. 1898).

4. Gedenkboek van het Vijftigjarig Jubileum der Chr. Ger. Kerk, Grand Rapids, 1907, contains two well-written, well-ddcumented chapters, dealing chiefly with the ecclesiastical side of the question, by Dr. Henry Beets.

5. Huizenga, George Ford, What the Dutch have done in the West, Philadelphia, 1909, pp. 52. Prize essay on this subject, awarded to students of Hope College, Holland, Mich., by Edward Bok. A brief, but fairly comprehensive study of the entire movement. Gives no references.

are sufficiently numerous to impress their social characteristics, and, to a certain extent, even their language upon entire cities and countries.

Thus, with some degree of certainty, the assertion may be made that since the days of Stuyvesant and Van Twiller the Dutch tongue has never ceased to be spoken on this continent; and, with even greater certainty, that the number of those who use either the spoken or written language is larger today than at any previous time in our history.

And, from the very nature of the case, this immigration movement has tended to strengthen and multiply the relations between the United States and the Netherlands.

During the years 1803 to 1840, the period which has been chosen for more intensive study, the relations between the two countries were very largely of a commercial character. A discussion of the Holland Land Company is here omitted, for, though it overlaps nearly the entire period, it was organized at least a decade prior to 1803, and several phases of its history do not belong to a study on Holland- American relations. At the opening of the period the last installments of the Dutch loans were being repaid, so that this line of connection had practically been eliminated. Although many hundreds of emigrants embarked for the United States from Dutch ports, the vast majority of these were Germans; arrivals from Holland were as yet few and far between. This phase of the subject, therefore, does not call for separate treatment. Our diplomatic relations with the Netherlands, though not entirely devoid of interest, were certainly of secondary importance in comparison with the problems arising out of trade and navigation. This was emphatically true of the years 1803 to 1813, when diplomatic relations were suspended entirely, and when the tremendous political and economic struggle between England and France disturbed the commerce of the whole civilized world to such an extent that the history of trade forms an important part of the history of the period. 2)

For a broader discussion of this statement see a recent article by Dr. W. E. Lingelbach, "Historical Investigation and the Commercial History of the Napoleonic Era," in Am. Hist. Review, vol. XIX., No. 2, January, 1914.

The American minister at The Hague had been recalled in May 1801, 1) and no successor was appointed until after the downfall of Napoleon. The reason for his recall, as Secretary Madison explained, 2) was not due to any grievance or ill-will against Holland, but solely to the desire of the Jefferson administration to economize on expenditures. This explanation must have been interpreted as a polite diplomatic subterfuge by the Dutch minister at Washington, who in his despatches makes pointed comments on our abundant harvests, on the diversified products of the soil, and on the growing commercial prosperity of the country. And so in reality it was ; for the political status of Holland had changed for the worse since the first Dutch minister arrived at Philadelphia in 1783. In 1795 Holland became the ally of France, and in succeeding years the nation experimented with a series of governments, which culminated, in 1806, in the establishment of a kingdom, with Louis Bonaparte, a brother of the French Emperor, as king. The last three of these changes were expressly dictated by Napoleon, who aimed to bind Holland" more closely to France, in order to insure the success of his policy with regard to England. An almost endless number of citations might be made from the voluminous correspondence of Napoleon, illustrating the extent to which the foreign policy of Holland was controlled by France for many years prior to July, 1810, when she actually became a portion of French territory. Under these circumstances it virtually became a needless expense to the American government to maintain a separate mission in that country.

Meanwhile the task of safeguarding the interests of our merchants and shipowners, trading with Holland, was entrusted to Sylvanus Bourne, the American consul-general at Amsterdam. And to his credit it must be said that he performed that difficult task quite as well as any regularly accredited envoy could have done. This is not saying, however, that he was entirely successful, for the spoliation claims later instituted against the Dutch government tell a different

1) Original letter of recall, May 30, 1801, signed by Jefferson and Madison, is in the Rijks-archief at The Hague, Buitenlandsche Zaken, Amerika, deel 359.

2) R. A., Buitenl. Zaken, Amerika, 359, Madison to Van Polanen, July 30, 1802.

story. But such losses as were sustained by American shipping were due to causes which were entirely beyond his control. These were years of great uncertainty for that portion of our seaboard population engaged in foreign commerce. A single voyage might bring rich returns, it might also involve heavy losses — losses which were not due to a sharp decline in market prices, but to the restraints of one kind or another which the international diplomacy of the time imposed even upon the trade of neutrals. Able and alert as Bourne showed himself to be, he was as powerless to prevent the restrictive legislation of the Dutch government, as he was to calm the violent storms of the North Sea which annually wrecked a number of our vessels off the coast of Holland.

The Napoleonic regime collapsed toward the end of 1813, and with it collapsed also the vast economic system which had come to bear his name. The trade of the United States, — of the entire world, in fact — entered upon a new era. War prices no longer prevailed in Holland, and the peculiar risks and uncertainties which had lent such a variety of interest to the preceding years were now a thing of the past. Before many years, the Dutch resumed their former position as the nation's carriers, and the monopoly which Americans had enjoyed of this branch of the trade also became a memory of the past. The return of peace did not, it is true, put an end to mutual complaints against trade restrictions, but these complaints were of an entirely different nature than during the decade preceding 1813. Then, too, the fact that we now had to deal with an independent nation, which was free to shape its navigation policy as its interests seemed to dictate, was another important factor entering into the changed situation, which put an entirely different face on our commercial relations with Holland.

One of the first results of Dutch independence was the restoration of diplomatic relations with the United States, a step in which the Dutch government took the initiative. The part which England attempted to play in this move will be told later. Yet, looking at this period from 1814 to 1840 as a whole, it is again the strictly commercial, rather than the diplomatic phase of the subject, which is of primary interest and importance. Tonnage duties and tariff schedules, and discussions relative to a new commercial treaty — these out and out commercial questions engaged nearly the entire attention of the diplomats of both countries.

To repeat, therefore, the main, though not the sole, interest of these 37 years of Holland-American relations centres in questions growing out of the commercial intercourse between the two countries. And it is this feature which gives a large degree of unity to the period.

The reason for fixing upon the year 1803 as the opening date of this study, rather than some earlier date such as 1783, or some later date such as. 1814, will possibly require a word of explanation. The choice may in part be considered arbitrary, although, on the other hand, it seems justified from the fact that it marks the rupture of the peace of Amiens and the resumption of war between England and France. A striking feature of this prolonged contest was the persistent policy of France to starve England into submission by excluding her products and manufactures not only from the ports of France, but also from those of every European country which, through the success of French arms or diplomacy, was compelled to become her ally in this cause. After 1806 this economic phase of the war came to be known as the Continental System of Napoleon, but so far as Holland was concerned, the Berlin decree of that year merely intensified the exclusion laws which were already being enforced there since 1803.

The Continental System as such — a definition of which need not be attempted here — is a subject which properly belongs to the European history of the period ; but it is here approached very largely from the American point of view, with the object of determining its effects upon our commerce with Holland. This plan has necessitated an examination of the exclusion decrees and commercial regulations of Holland, and, to some extent, of the actual administration of the system by Dutch and French officials. It should be borne in mind, however, that the primary object has been to set forth the American rather than the European aspect of the subject. The two cannot be entirely separated, to be sure, for it would not be possible to make a detailed study of the Continental System in Holland without devoting considerable space to the peculiar position of the Americans as neutral carriers. It is possible, on the other hand, to trace the vicissitudes of our commerce during the operation of the system, without entering into the larger European aspect of the problem any further than is necessary for purposes of explanation.

A second reason why the choice of the year 1803 seems justified is that it furnishes a proper perspective for forming a judgment on the effect of the Napoleonic System after it came to be applied to neutrals. It is only by comparing our trade with Holland under the Berlin and Milan decrees with that of the preceding years, that an adequate idea can be formed of what these decrees actually meant to the American shipper as well as to the Dutch consumer.

It may at first thought appear that the year 1814, the year when diplomatic relations were reestablished, and when trade was resumed on a normal, peace basis, would be a more suitable date for beginning a study of this nature than the year 1803. There are, however, a few obvious objections to this plan. In the first place, though it is often idle to speculate on what might have been, in this instance it is highly improbable that there should have been a gap of some thirteen years in our diplomatic relations with Holland, had the French Revolution not produced a Napoleon, who carried out the ambitions and policies of his nation, as well as his own, when he made Holland a dependency, a mere vassal state, of France. In the second place, the axiom that present-day conditions must be explained from causes operative in the past, is strikingly illustrated when applied to the years following upon the Napoleonic era. Thus the entire subject of spoliation claims, which the United States instituted against Holland and other European countries, is one of the aftermaths of this period, and the subject can be made intelligible only by a study of the restrictive legislation which gave rise to them. Again, it is due to causes growing out of the grotesque economic system of Napoleon that at least one explanation must be sought for the difficulty in agreeing upon a satisfactory basis for a commercial treaty between the two countries. It seems more logical, therefore, to carry the subject back to 1803, in order to trace these causes to their source.

The period from 1814 to 1840 also has an interest all its own. Until 1815 it had been the policy of the American government to protect American shipping by laying discriminating tonnage and import duties on foreign vessels. After

1815 this protective policy was gradually abandoned in favor of reciprocity. The first American reciprocity act, that of March 3, 1815, was general in its nature and applied to all foreign nations that were willing to reciprocate. The king of The Netherlands made an immediate, and a favorable, response to this act in his proclamation of May 27, 1815. After three years of delay, Congress made concessions to Dutch shipping similar to those which Holland had made in favor of American shipping. The act of April 20, 1818, established a partial reciprocity between the two countries. Holland thus became the second nation to obtain this favor from the United States, England having already received it in 1815. After 1818 both countries sought to obtain a more perfect reciprocity, but found it difficult to reach an agreement. The negotiations on this subject dragged along for many years, and it was not till 1839 that a reciprocity convention between the two countries was adopted.

Note: From 1795 to June, 1806, the official name of the Dutch government was the Batavian Republic; in 1806 it was changed to the Kingdom of Holland, and in 1814 to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which has since remained the official designation. Even the most careful writers have come to use "The Netherlands" and "Holland" without discrimination when referring to either the country or to the government, and this well-established, though erroneous, practice is here adhered to. The practice arose from the fact that the provinces of North and South Holland were the centres of greatest wealth and political influence, and consequently played a more important part in the history of the nation than did the rest of the provinces combined. "Holland" and "Dutch" when used either as noun or adjective, have also become synonymous.

CHAPTER II. A Period of Prosperity For The American Trader. (1803—1807.)

The return of peace, in 1802, was hailed with far greater joy by the nations of Western Europe than among the commercial population of the United States. The European wars, as the Dutch minister at Washington expressed it in one of his last despatches, had enriched the American nation at the expense of Holland, France and Spain, and had led to a mighty increase in American commerce. "The wisdom of the previous American administration," he writes on May 12, 1802, "in maintaining a position of neutrality among the warring nations ; the complete predominance of England on every sea, by reason of which the shipping of our nation, of France and Spain has ceased entirely, and the trade with the colonies of these nations has, as a consequence, been opened up to the Americans; the spirit of revolution which has swept over a large part of Europe, and which has caused the transfer of huge capitals to the United States, the only place of safety; all these misfortunes under which the greater part of Europe has suffered, have combined to raise American commerce to a very high rank, and have placed the United States next to England among the commercial nations of the world." Not only had our carrying trade been increased, but, as he relates further with ill-concealed jealousy, that same nation had also been blessed with a succession of favorable crops, and this, together with the opening up of new lands, had more than doubled the products of the soil in the last eight years. During the wars these products had brought rich returns to their owners when sold in the markets of Europe and the West Indies. It would, doubtless, be incorrect to assume that the slight jealousy which he here reveals was indicative of the state of mind of the entire Dutch people; nevertheless, as the years go by this feeling crops out again and again.

In this same despatch he gives expression to the following opinions on the business methods employed by the Yankee merchant and trader, as he had come to know them after residing in this country some six years. "As in their trade, so in their expenditures — everything has been exaggerated; bad faith, downright cheating and the breaking of contracts have become universal, yet these methods have failed to increase their capital; and by reason of their hazardous speculations and their shameful business transactions, they have forfeited both their good standing as merchants and the respect of their fellowmen. A contemplation of the present state of things in this country," he confesses, "has given me a more just appreciation of the sound common sense and of the old customs and virtues of my countrymen, who, by honesty in trade, combined with a wise frugality, have arisen to such a degree of prosperity that, in the last war, they were not only enabled to prevent their complete destruction as a nation, but even to gain the respect and confidence of their jealous English rivals." Unfortunately, a year or two later any American might have retorted, with perfect truth, that the entire commercial population of Holland were resorting to practices equally false and dishonest as those which are here charged up against the Americans.