“The aforesaid provisional representatives have, therefore, not only taken the requisite, and most efficacious measures, that henceforward there shall not be delivered from, nor advanced by, the said bank, contrary to its original institution, any specie whatsoever, by any authority, either as a loan, or in any other illegal manner; but also that the said bonds, lodged in the said bank as securities, as aforesaid, shall be liquidated as soon as possible, and generally, that this city, as debtor to the bank, shall, with all practicable dispatch, discharge in cash the balance of its account with the said bank, which being done, the provisional representatives declare, that there can exist no deficiency of any kind soever; and that they will, without delay, take into their serious consideration, and will carry into immediate effect, the means to obtain this end.” For this sum, amounting to upwards of nine millions of florins, the proper investments had been made, but of the deposits, which ought to have been permanent, in consequence of the expiration of the receipts, not a florin remained in the caves of the bank. It appeared that the directors, like the magistrate who presided at the execution of the murderer, beneficially for the state, no doubt had departed from the strict letter of the law, and instead of suffering so much wealth to remain in a state of unproductive inertion, they had duplicated the energies of credit by judicious and advantageous loans of it to a variety of merchants and tradesmen. This statement excited the highest indignation against the directors, who were, in the violence of that party-spirit which then raged in Holland, branded with every epithet which appertains to the real national defaulter. The deficiency thus explained could have no injurious influence upon the bank, with regard to the cash receipts which were unexpired, unless the debts due to the bank, upon such accommodations, should not be regularly discharged. But no explanation could appease the popular fury, which connected this politic deviation from the strict letter of an unwise law into high treason against the state, and loudly demanded, that all the directors of the bank, and persons entrusted with the management of any other public fund, should be put under arrest: to such a height was this spirit carried, that many of the members of the old government would have been sacrificed to the animosity of faction, and revolutionary vengeance, had not the French general interfered, and by a humane proclamation addressed to people enlightened by the benign effects of public education, averted their anger.