Pichegru invaded Holland late in the autumn of 1794. The duke of York had already returned to England. A line of defence was, nevertheless, taken up by the British under Wallmoden, by the Dutch under their hereditary stadtholder, William V. of Orange, and by an Austrian corps under Alvinzi; the Dutch were, however, panic-struck, and negotiated a separate treaty with Pichegru,[2] who, at that moment, solely aimed at separating the Dutch from their allies; but when, in December, all the rivers and canals were suddenly frozen, and nature no longer threw insurmountable obstacles in his path, regardless of the negotiations then pending in Paris, he unexpectedly took up arms, marched across the icebound waters, and carried Holland by storm. With him marched the anti-Orangemen, the exiled Dutch patriots, under General Daendels and Admiral de Winter, with the pretended view of restoring ancient republican liberty to Holland and of expelling the tyrannical Orange dynasty. The British (and some Hessian troops) were defeated at Thiel on the Waal; Alvinzi met with a similar fate at Pondern, and was compelled to retreat into Westphalia. Some English ships, which lay frozen up in the harbor, were captured by the French hussars. A most manly resistance was made; but no aid was sent from any quarter. Prussia, who so shortly before had ranged herself on the side of the stadtholder against the people, was now an indifferent spectator. William V. was compelled to flee to England. Holland was transformed into a Batavian republic. Hahn, Hoof, etc., were the first furious Jacobins by whom everything was there formed upon the French model. The Dutch were compelled to cede Maestricht, Venloo, and Vliessingen; to pay a hundred millions to France, and, moreover, to allow their country to be plundered, to be stripped of all the splendid works of art, pictures, etc. (as was also the case in the Netherlands and on the Rhine), and even of the valuable museum of natural curiosities collected by them with such assiduity in every quarter of the globe. These depredations were succeeded by a more systematic mode of plunder. Holland was mercilessly drained of her enormous wealth. All the gold and silver bullion was first of all collected; this was followed by the imposition of an income-tax of six per cent, which was afterward repeated, and was succeeded by an income-tax on a sliding scale from three to thirty per cent. The British, at the same time, destroyed the Dutch fleet in the Texel commanded by de Winter, in order to prevent its capture by the French, and seized all the Dutch colonies, Java alone excepted. The flag of Holland had vanished from the seas.