The Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution

The "age of the democratic revolution" 1 in the Dutch Republic cul­ minated in two revolutions : the aborted Patriot Revolution of 1787 and the more successful Batavian Revolution of 1795. For the United Provinces that age had begun after a series of crises in 1747 and resulted in the un­ precedented establishment of a single individual in the office of chief executive in all of the component provinces. The new form which emerged from the foreign and domestic threats of midcentury was that of a