soldiers; but the government was obliged to supply with new recruits the diminution of their forces, which arose from this cause. The Dutch soldiers were reproached early in the war, by the British and Austrian troops, then their brethren in arms, with shameful cowardice or treachery, and the same accusations pursued them when they were united to the legions of France.
In 1799 the Batavian republic seems to have reached its lowest ebb of depression. The people, worn out with the repeated exactions of the French, the destruction of their commerce, the loss of their colonies, and the arbitrary acts of the government, became impatient of a change in the system of affairs, and the discontents that reigned throughout the republic assumed a haughty and menacing tone. The condition of Holland under the administration of the stadtholder was invidiously compared with its degraded and abject situation under the directorial government, and exposed to the rapacity of France.
