On the sixth of April, 1672, France issued a declaration of war which had been long expected. Louis the Fourteenth celebrated beforehand the conquest he was about to undertake, although some of his most experienced generals, Condé for instance, did not share his confidence. However, the rapidity with which the French, after having crossed the Yssel, took cities and fortresses almost without firing a gun, seemed fully to justify Louis the Fourteenth in his anticipation of an easy and brilliant victory. One short month had sufficed to place at the mercy of the French monarch the flourishing and prosperous Republic, which four years before had interrupted him in his march of victory. No man suffered more both as a patriot and as a public official, from the disastrous turn in public affairs than John de Witt. He had done all that a sagacious statesman and a noble-minded patriot could do to prevent, and failing in this attempt, sought to repair the disasters which overwhelmed the Republic. But the ungrateful people failed to stand by him and reward his exertions for the public welfare. And not only the honor of having saved the independence of his country in this unequal conflict was denied to him, but his life itself was lost, as a sacrifice to popular hatred and fanaticism.
Under these exasperating circumstances--each new day bringing information of a new calamity, of the surrender of a fortress, of the capitulation of a garrison, of the precipitate retreat of the army--it was not only natural, it was a matter of duty and patriotism for John de Witt, the head of the government, to enter into negotiations with the conqueror in order to check his rapid advance and get from him better terms of peace than might be expected after he had captured the last bulwarks of Dutch independence. It was by no means De Witt’s plan to open negotiations for the surrender of Dutch independence; but he hoped that the French King would consent to suspend hostilities during the progress of the negotiations, and that this intermission would give the Republic time to strengthen its bulwarks. In case of an unfavorable result, he would resume armed resistance with greater chances of success than before. John de Witt had frequently, during the months preceding the outbreak of the war, insisted on making adequate preparations to meet an attack of the French King, whose restless ambition for military glory and territorial expansion was well known. He had also pointed out (if all other means should fail) the necessity of again, as in the war with Spain, resorting to those means of defence which nature had placed in the possession of the Dutch, by opening the sluices and cutting the dykes, in order to let the sea overflow the bottom lands of the country, and thus protecting Holland, and above all Amsterdam, from foreign occupation. This last measure of defence, terrible and destructive as it was necessarily, was really the anchor of hope upon which the minds of Dutch patriots rested their expectations of final triumph.