Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 2).djvu/100

78 diplomatists. "The best way," Stormont wrote to Yorke, "to bring the Dutch to their senses is to wound them in their most feeling part, their carrying trade. The success of our cruisers has hitherto fallen much short of our expectation." A rupture however was still delayed; the party of the Stadtholder succeeded in making the accession of the States-General to the Armed Neutrality contingent on the guarantee by Russia of the Dutch possessions in the East and the West Indies, and the negotiation subsequently hung fire. An accident came at this moment to precipitate a crisis. In the month of October, whom the Congress had appointed to be one of their Commissioners in Europe, was captured on his passage from America to the Netherlands. Among his papers was found the draft of a treaty, which in the previous year had been drawn up under the sanction of, Pensionary of Amsterdam, and Jan de Neufville, an Amsterdam merchant, by , American Commissioner to Vienna and Berlin, and by him was communicated to the American Commissioners at Paris. Van Berckel and Neufville had only obtained the informal consent of the burgomasters of Amsterdam to their negotiation with William Lee. The States-General had never been consulted, and the treaty was nothing more than a project, which Van Berckel and his friends intended to lay before the States-General, in the not improbable event of America becoming independent. The American Commissioners had looked upon Lee as an intermeddler, and, probably at their recommendation, Congress had soon after dismissed him from their service. The discovery of the draft was held in England to reveal a deep-set purpose on the part of Holland. It was however difficult to make Van Berckel's Treaty a casus belli, for on the 3rd of November the States of Holland met and condemned the conduct of Amsterdam. It was therefore resolved to insist upon the punishment of Van Berckel and his accomplices, in the event of the States-General acceding to the Russian offers. On the 23rd