Briefwisseling en aantekeningen. Deel 2

336
R. Wolters¹⁾ aan Willem Bentinck

[B.M., Eg. 1745]

1) R. Wolters was agent van de Engelse regering te Rotterdam. In die hoedanigheid zond hij nieuwsbrieven uit allerlei plaatsen naar het Foreign Office door en schreef hij ook zelf brieven over de binnenlandse toestand in de Republiek. Zie Geyl, De agent Wolters. Hij was door Cumberland aangesteld tot ‘Commissary of the army for this campaign’. Zie ibidem, p. 76, n. 2.

Amsterdam, 9 mei 1748

I see by the publick papers that you are now at The Hague, which had I expected I would not have gone into the country before I had seen you.

You have I suppose heared from lord Sandwich that I have resigned the commissaryship, which as I have done from a very honest motive I believe you will approve. My health would not permit me to attend the service as I was resolved to do; it must consequently have suffered and even in killing myself I would have had the mortification to have seen the service suffer: de plus je dois vous dire que cet employ ne me convenoit nullement, as my aim never was to make a fortune that way. Had I found myself capable of redressing the abuses that have crept into that office I would have continued, but finding the contrary I thought that it was better to retire, than expose myself to be reflected upon and what was done by ignorance thought to be a piece of roguery. H.R.H.²⁾ was very gracious to me. (Wolters spreekt zijn voldoening over de welgezindheid van de hertog uit). My greatest ambition is now to make my place att Rotterdam something better than it is, as I am sure that I can be more usefull there than anywhere. (Hopenlijk staan Wolters' vrienden hem terzijde. Wolters gaat binnenkort twee weken vakantie nemen). If you have anything to say to me, a letter sent to my lodgings att The Hague will be forwarded to me.

2) Cumberland.

[p. 8]

The chief purpose of my writing this is that I see that most people here are strongly prepossessed against the pretended speach of the Prince stadholder to the council of state³⁾ which was printed in the french Amsterdam gazette⁴⁾ and from thence taken by several other gazetteers. I must tell you that the disavoual made of it in the Dutch Hague, Amsterdam and Haarlem gazettes it not thought sufficient to prouve that the speach is not genuine and that it will be absolutely necessary to take more publick notice of it either by a proclamation or by punishing or calling to an account the first publishers. I would not write so strongly, were it not that I know that the ennemies of the Prince and State will make a handle of this affair to promote mischief: you know my sentiments and consequently you can not take what I write amiss.

P.S. I have just heard that monsieur Tronchain⁵⁾ had the pretended speach from Rousset⁶⁾, so that the thing can be easely traced. For God's sake think of having this matter put to rights, for every body expects that it will be contradicted in the most publick manner; I shall be glad to make use of any arguments that you may think proper to hint to me upon this subject.

3) Zie Wagenaar, Vad. Hist. XX, p. 189. De Prins zou van het leger als van ‘zijn leger’ hebben gesproken en 's lands ingezetenen ‘zijn onderdanen’ hebben genoemd. Wolters' waarschuwing heeft mogelijk bijgedragen tot het publiceren van een verklaring van de Prins, waarin hij de authenticiteit van het verslag nogmaals loochende en erbij voegde, ‘dat hij het zich tot een eer rekende geboren en opgevoed te zijn en nog met genoegen te wonen onder een vrij volk’. De volledige tekst van dit dementi in Van Laar II, p. 178 vlg.

4) Naast Nederlandse nieuwsbladen werden ook kranten in het Frans uitgegeven. Deze laatsten werden vooral door de verfranste aristocratie gelezen. Zie Geyl, Nederl. Stam II, pag. 385.

5) Théodore Tronchin. Zie Nouv. Biogr. Gén., XLV, kol. 665 vlg.

6) Jean Rousset de Missy, Oranjegezind réfugié, fel bestrijder van de misbruiken der familie regering in het veelgelezen weekblad Mercure historique et politique; speelde een voorname rol in de Doelistenbeweging. De Voogd, p. 83; Archives IV, I, p. 380 en Geyl, Revolutiedagen, p. 48, 158 vlg., 175 vlg.