William of Orange was born in 1748, the only son of William IV, who had the year before been restored as stadtholder of the United Provinces. He was only 3 years old when his father died in 1751, and a long regency began. William assumed the position of stadtholder (chief executive) and Captain-General of the Dutch States Army in 1766. On 4 October 1767 in Berlin, Prince William married Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, the daughter of Augustus William of Prussia, niece of Frederick the Great and a cousin of George III.
William was cold, but not personally cruel. He wasted no time on minor revenges. His sole quarrel was with Louis XV. For all his experience from a youth spent at the head of banquet halls and some time in the field of battle, and for all his dauntless heart, he was never a great commander. He had not a trace of that second-sight of the battlefield which is the mark of military genius. He was no more than a resolute man of good common sense whom the accident of birth had carried to the conduct of war. His inspiration lay in the sphere of diplomacy. He has rarely been surpassed in the sagacity, patience, and discretion of his statescraft. The combinations he made, the difficulties he surmounted, the adroitness with which he used the time factor or played upon the weakness of others, his unerring sense of proportion and power of assigning to objectives their true priorities, all mark him for the highest repute.
His paramount interest was in the great war now begun throughout Europe, and in the immense confederacy he had seen brought into being in the New World. He had regarded the American adventure as a miracle for Protestantism and which would serve a larger, European, purpose. He was fond of America, and was very interested in her domestic affairs. He admired the wilderness, wealth and power of America by land and sea. And now, the Virginian State had come in person to enlist his assistance.
In May of 1779, Mason met with the Dutch monarch and laid out a broad proposal. If the prince could provide Virginia with military and economic assistance as well as trade, Virginia would seat an electorate of the prince’s choice on a new Virginian throne. Popular support for the newly independent American nations in Holland persuaded the prince to accept the proposal. However, the 31 year-old had an idea of his own. Perhaps he, himself, should be permitted to assume the throne of Virginia. This, he attested, he would do if the Virginians could acquire lands to the west, reaching to the Mississippi and could unite with Maryland and Delaware. Mason wrote the Secret Assembly on 13 June, 1779, and waited for a response. The Virginians agreed to the arrangement if the prince would give up his claims to the Dutch Republic and would come with a military force to oppose General Washington, the officers of which would be promised land and a seat in the new government. The deal was officially signed in October 1780.
In March of 1781, the newly appointed General Henry Lee began training his Virginian militias (numbering 1,200 men) to fight the Republican forces and Indian tribes within the current year and to posses as much territory to the east of the Mississippi as possible. The Secret Assembly intended to make good on their promise to Prince William and so offered overtures of union to Maryland and Delaware, significantly increasing the economic benefit for the citizens of all three countries. Maryland and Delaware, increasingly tired of Washington's dictatorship and longing for legitimacy among the European nations, agreed to the union only if they would receive equal representation in the new government. The Act of Union Between Virginia, Maryland and Delaware was signed into law by the President of the newly christened House of Burgesses on 21 August 1782. By then, General Lee was in control of the lands due west of Maryland and Virginia and was camped on the Mississippi. Washington, in New York, fumed about his own Virginian State, saying, "William shall be king! How did this pass beneath our noses?"
As he boarded the flagship Rhine on 1 May 1783, he passed his throne to his sister, Princess Carolina of Orange and Nassau-Dietz, Princess of Nassau-Weilburg, who supplied the Dutch force for his crossing and security. The royal convoy arrived at Yorktown, Virginia, on 18 November, 1783 to “cannon fire, fireworks and music of the most regal caliber.” General Washington was there to meet him with an army of 500 hastily-gathered soldiers “clothed in homespun articles none too impressive upon the Prince.” Washington had since allowed the Congress to reopen in Albany and was throwing himself at the foot of the new Virginian king for mercy.
William was given the Governor’s Mansion in Williamsburg as his residence and was attended by over 100 servants and slaves. The army was moved to Arlington, Virginia, and the navy was docked in Norfolk. William I was crowned king on 1 January, 1784, the official birthday of the Virginian Kingdom. The world looked on in astonishment.
Almost immediately,Virginia had problems. The French, taking advantage of the failed republic, were encroaching on the sovereign lands of Pennsylvania and New England and Virginian assistance was needed. In 1785, William ordered a sizeable army of 4,500 Virginians regulars under General Lee, 1,500 Virginia Volunteer Militia and Native Indians under General Washington and 1,400 Dutch under General Wilhelm Ludwig to move north and join with the militias of Pennsylvania and New England to “suppress the French advance.”
French Generals Montcalm and Rochambeau were moving into the Ohio with a force of about 7,000 French, Canadian and Indian troops. The American Allies' strategy would be to defeat the French and to establish outposts and forts to prevent them from returning. The Franco-American War began when, on 17 August 1775, the American forces encountered the French under Rochambeau along the Monongahela River at Fort Duquesne, close to where General Washington had seen his first taste of battle in the Seven Years' War. The siege was brief. Washington and Ludwig unloaded superior artillery fire upon their midnight arrival and stormed the palisades around 4:00 AM. The French surrendered, having lost over 700 men while the American-Dutch forces lost only 87. The victory resulted in the treaty of Albany which was signed between Governor Montcalm of New France and King William I of Virginia. The Indian parties, however, continued to harass the victors for months.
Furthermore, French encroachments on American merchant vessels was being checked by the Dutch fleet and American privateers stationed out of Norfolk, Virginia. Other Virginian ships were being constructed in Portsmouth and were to be added to the fleet by the following year. After a sea-battle in which the French lost 32 warships, France’s newly crowned Louis XVI declared an end to hostilities and forbade his forces from marching into sovereign American territories. By now, George III’s British Royal Navy was of sufficient strength to begin protecting its own trade to and from the Americas and added spiteful assistance to the Americans against “Papal Versailles.”
Throughout the 1780s and 1790s, King William oversaw the increased tobacco, cotton and fishing trade of Virginia while constructing highways and roads for improved shipping by land of all agricultural products. The economy of the Kingdom exploded in his reign; his military was unchallenged on land or at sea. He is perhaps one of the most popular sovereigns in Virginian history.
In 1792, however, France’s failed military campaigns on the continent and abroad caused the economy to collapse. The incompetent Louis XVI was fumbling his resources and increasing the national debt by his mere existence. The corrupt French government and foreign offices were straining the people further. A rebellion in Quebec led the way for the entire empire to collapse in on itself. France fell into Civil War between Royalists and Republicans and came to a head when Louis XVI and the royal family boarded British ships and removed themselves to Louisiana with the majority of the French court. Royalist supporters soon followed with the assistance of the British, Spanish, Austrians and Dutch. In 1796, France declared itself a republic while Louisiana, home to the king and his royalist subjects, became a new and independent nation: Louisiana.
Here, slave labor was provided by warring Indian tribes and was imported from Africa and the Caribbean to build a society not unlike that of its eastern neighbors, though on a much larger scale and much more authoritarian. Though William and the other American governments were quick to establish either an alliance with or neutrality to the new French state, the idea of a giant Catholic neighbor to the west of the Mississippi was a frightening one.
Therefore, William I called for a meeting of the heads of state from all across the continent to take place at La Nouvelle Orleans (now Nouvelle Versailles), in which a treaty would be reached guaranteeing the respect for borders. No nation wanted North America to continue the wars of the past nor did they want to play a repeat of Europe’s bloody history. The French King was “gracious and understanding,” and promised his “complete indebtedness to the kind people of this continent.”
By 1800, lower Louisiana was one of the fastest growing economic powerhouses on the continent. To their west and south, they would be contending with a fast expanding Spanish empire in Mexico. In the interior of the country, Louis was dealing with the Indian uprisings. There would be little concern from his east, for which he was greatly appreciative.
With an accomplished and revolutionary reign, William I died on 8 April, 1806. In 1809, the French Republic in Europe was at war with Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Russia and Britain as a new, military-state emerged and took hold of the country headed by a young general named Jean-Baptiste Jourdan.
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