Page:A Tour Through the Batavian Republic.djvu/342

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330
TOUR THROUGH

guaranteed by a large share of animosity against the British nation, and opposed the disembarkation of the hostile forces with the greatest courage and resolution. At length, pressed by superior numbers, they retreated, but not before they had made a most gallant resistance, and given the English a severe foretaste of the determined opposition which they had to expect from the Batavian army.

If the stadtholderian party had been too sanguine in their expectations from the Dutch army, it appears that they had formed a true judgment of the disposition of the navy. On the defeat of the forces which opposed the landing of the English, strong symptoms of mutiny and insubordination broke out in the Dutch fleet. This tendency to revolt, it is firmly believed in Holland, might have been checked, had the commander-in-chief and some of the principal officers of the fleet been faithful to their duty, but they are supposed to have been gained over to the stadtholderian party; and the disgraceful surrender of the fleet was the consequence of their treachery. The justification of