STADTHOLDER

STADTHOLDER, the principal magistrate or governor of the Seven United Provinces. This office is now abolished by the republican influence of France; but as the prince of Orange is in alliance with this country, our readers will probably not be ill pleased with a short account of his several powers and claims. To render that account the more intelligible, we shall trace the office of Stadtholder from its origin.

The Seven Provinces of the Low Countries were long governed by princes invested with the sovereignty, though limited in their powers, and under various titles; as Counts of Holland, Dukes of Guelder, Bishop of Utrecht, &c. When these countries fell to the princes of the house of Burgundy, and afterwards to those of Austria, who had many other dominions, the absence of the sovereign was supplied by a stadtholder or governor, vested with very ample powers. These stadtholders or lieutenants had the administration of the government, and presided in the courts of justice, whose jurisdiction was not at that time confined merely to the trial of causes, but extended to affairs of state. The stadtholders swore allegiance to the princes at their inauguration, jointly with the states of the provinces they governed. They likewise took an oath to the states, by which they promised to maintain their fundamental laws and privileges.

It was upon this footing that William the First, prince of Orange, was made governor and lieutenant-general of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht, by Philip the Second, upon his leaving the Low Countries to go into Spain. The troubles beginning soon after, this prince found means to bring about an union, in 1576, between Holland and Zealand; the states of which two provinces put into his hands, as far as was in their power, the sovereign authority (for so long time as they should remain in war and under arms), upon the same footing as Holland had intruded him with in the year before. In 1581 the same authority was again renewed to him by Holland, as it was soon after by Zealand likewise; and in 1584, being already elected count of Holland, upon certain conditions he would have been formally invested with the sovereignty, had not a wretch, hired and employed by the court of Spain, put an end to his life by a horrid assassination.

In the preamble of the instruments by which the states in 1581 conferred the sovereign authority upon prince William the First, we find these remarkable words, which are there set down as fundamental rules: "That all republics and communities ought to preserve, maintain, and fortify themselves by unanimity; which being impossible to be kept up always among so many

Stadtholder. many members, often differing in inclinations and sentiments, it is consequently necessary that the government should be placed in the hands of one single chief magistrate." Many good politicians, and the greatest part of the inhabitants of these provinces, have, since the establishment of the republic, looked upon the stadtholderian government as an essential part of her constitution; nor has she been without a stadtholder but twice, that is to say, from the end of 1650 to 1672, and again from March 1702 till April 1747. The provinces of Friesland and Groningen, with Ommelands, have always had a stadtholder without interruption: their instructions, which are now no longer in force, may be seen in Aitzema; but formerly the powers of the stadtholder of these provinces were confined within narrower bounds, and till William the Fourth there was no stadtholder of the seven provinces together.

The stadtholder cannot declare war nor make peace, but he has, in quality of captain-general of the union, the command in chief of all the forces of the state (A); and military persons are obliged to obey him in every thing that concerns the service. He is not limited by instructions, but he has the important power of giving out orders for the march of troops, and the disposition of all matters relative to them. He not only directs their marches, but provides for the garrisons, and changes them at pleasure. All military edicts and regulations come from him alone; he constitutes and authorizes the high council of war of the United Provinces, and, as captain-general of every province, disposes of all military offices, as far as the rank of colonel inclusively. The higher posts, such as those of velt-maishals, generals, lieutenant-generals, major-generals, are given by the states-general, who choose the persons recommended by his highness. He makes the governors, commandants, &c. of towns and strong places of the republic, and of the barrier. The persons nominated present their instruments of appointment to their high mightinesses, who provide them with commissions. The states-general have likewise great regard to the recommendation of the prince stadtholder in the disposition of those civil employments which are in their gift.

The power of the stadtholder as high-admiral, extends to every thing that concerns the naval force of the republic, and to all the other affairs that are here within the jurisdiction of the admiralty. He presides at these boards either in person or by his representatives; and as chief of them all in general, and of every one in particular, he has power to make their orders and instructions be observed by themselves and others. He bestows the posts of lieutenant-admiral, vice-admiral, and rear-admiral, who command under him; and he makes likewise post-captains.

The stadtholder grants likewise letters of grace, pardon, and abolition, as well for the crime called Communia Delicta, as for military offences. In Holland and Zeeland these letters are made out for crimes of the first

fort, in the name of the states, with the advice of his Stadtholder. In military offences he consults the high council of war, and upon the communia delicta he takes the advice of the courts of justice, of the counsellors, committees of the provinces, of the council of state, and the tribunals of justice in the respective towns, according to the nature of the case.

In the provinces of Holland and Zeeland, the stadtholder elects the magistrates of the towns annually, out of a double number that are returned to him by the towns themselves.

When any of those offices become vacant, which, at the time there was no governor, were in the disposal of the states of Holland, or as formerly in that of the chamber of accounts, the stadtholder has his choice of two, or, in some cases, of three candidates, named by their noble and great mightinesses. He chooses likewise the counsellors, inspectors of the dykes of Ryland, Delfland, and Secheland, out of three persons presented to him by the boards of the counsellors inspectors; which boards are of very ancient establishment in Holland.

His highness presides in the courts of Holland, and in the courts of justice of the other provinces; and his name is placed at the head of the proclamations and acts, called in Dutch Mandamenten, or Provisionen van Justitie. In Overijssel and in the province of Utrecht the possessors of fiefs hold of the prince stadtholder. He is supreme curator of the universities of Guelder, Friesland, and Groningen; grand forester and grand veneur in Guelder, in Holland, and other places. In the province of Utrecht, his highness, by virtue of the regulation of 1674, disposes of the provostships and other benefices which remain to the chapters, as also of the canonical prebends that fall in the months which were formerly the papal months.

By the first article of the council of state of the United Provinces, the stadtholder is the first member of it, and has a right of voting there, with an appointment of 25,000 guilders a-year. He assists also as often as he thinks it for the service of the state, at the deliberations of the states-general, to make propositions to them, and sometimes also at the conferences which the deputies of their high mightinesses hold in their different committees, in consequence of their standing orders. He likewise assists at the assemblies of the states of each particular province, and at that of the counsellors committees. In Guelder, Holland, and Utrecht, his highness has a share of the sovereignty, as chief or president of the body of nobles; and in Zeeland, where he possesses the marquisate of Veer and Flushing, as first noble, and representing the whole nobility. In his absence he has in Zeeland his representatives, who have the first place and the first voice in all the councils, and the first of whom is always first deputy from the province to the assembly of their high mightinesses.

In 1749 the prince stadtholder was created by the states.

states-general, governor-general and supreme director of the East and West India companies; dignities which give him a great deal of authority and power, and which had never been conferred upon any of his predecessors, nor have they hitherto been made hereditary. He has his representatives in the several chambers of the company, and chooses their directors out of a nomination of three qualified persons. The prince enjoyed this prerogative in Zealand from the time of his elevation to the stadtholderate.

The revenues of the stadtholderate of the seven United Provinces are reckoned (including the 25,000 guilders which the prince enjoys annually as the first member of the council of state, and what he has from the India company's dividends) to amount to 300,000 guilders a year. As captain-general of the union, his serene highness has 120,000 guilders per annum, besides 24,000 from Friesland, and 12,000 from Groningen, in quality of captain-general of those provinces. In times of war the state allows extraordinary sums to the captain-general for the expence of every campaign.

To all these powers and privileges the prince of Orange has a legal and constitutional right; but he has been divested of them by a faction which seems determined to sell to the cruel and arbitrary republic of France that country which his ancestors redeemed from Austrian slavery, at the hazard of losing every thing dear to them but liberty and honour.