The French advance was now stayed by the Committee of Public Safety, in deference to an emotion of patriotism, until the towns surrendered the year before should be retaken. On the 11th of August Le Quesnoy opened its gates, on the 27th Valenciennes, and on the 30th Condé. The siege corps now rejoined the armies in the field and the advance was resumed; Pichegru following the British and Dutch toward Holland, Jourdan, by a series of flank attacks which threatened the communications of the Austrians, forcing the latter from one position to another, until on the 5th October they recrossed to the east side of the Rhine, the French occupying Coblentz and Bonn on the west bank. The advance of Pichegru was marked by less of battle and more of siege than that of Jourdan, but was alike successful. By the middle of October his army had reached the Rhine; which in Holland divides into two branches, the Waal and the Leek, between which the enemy lay. A month later they had retreated beyond the latter, the French being for a moment stopped by the floating ice in the rivers; but the winter was one of unusual severity, and early in January the waters were frozen hard. On the 17th of January, 1795, the Prince of Orange left Holland for England, and on the 20th Pichegru entered Amsterdam. The provinces and cities everywhere declared for the French, and a provisional republican government was established; while the pursuit of the British troops was continued with unremitting diligence until they had escaped into German territory, whence they returned, in April, to England.
The occupation of Belgium and Holland by the French was in every way a matter of concern to the other European powers. It threatened Great Britain in the North Sea, where her flank had previously been strengthened by the Dutch alliance, and compelled her at once to weaken the Channel fleet by a detachment of five ships-of-the-line to confront the Dutch squadrons. The merchants of Holland being among the great money-lenders of Europe, large revenues were opened to the needy French; and the resources thus gained by them were by the same blow lost to the allies. Great Britain thenceforth had to bear alone the money burden of the war. But on the other hand the republican commissaries sucked like leeches the substance of the Dutch; and the sources of their wealth, commerce and the colonies, were at the same time threatened with extinction by the British sea power, whose immediate hostility was incurred by the change in their political relations. Within a month, on the 9th of February, orders were issued to arrest all Dutch ships at sea; temporary provision being made to restore neutral property found on board them, because shipped while Holland was an ally. Vigorous measures were at once taken for the seizure of the rich Dutch colonies in all parts of the world; and before the year 1795 closed, there passed into the hands of Great Britain the Cape of Good Hope, Malacca, all the Dutch possessions on the continent of India, and the most important places in Ceylon; the whole island submitting in 1796. Besides these, other colonies were taken in the farther East and in the West Indies. The Dutch navy remained inoffensively in its ports until the year 1797, with the exception of a small expedition that escaped from the Texel in February, 1796, prepared to retake the Cape of Good Hope. Unable to go through the English Channel, which was completely under the enemy's control, it passed north of the British Islands and eluded capture until Saldanha Bay, near the Cape, was reached. Upon hearing of its arrival the British admiral on that station sailed in pursuit, and, having a greatly superior force, received its instant surrender.