Aan het Volk van Nederland

First page of the pamphlet.

Aan het Volk van Nederland (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈaːn ət ˈfɔl(ə)k fɑˈneːdərlɑnt]; English: To the People of the Netherlands) was a pamphlet distributed by window-covered carriages across all major cities of the Dutch Republic in the night of 25 to 26 September 1781. It claimed the entire political system, dominated by the Orange hereditary stadtholderate, was corrupt and had to be overthrown in favour of a democratic republic. The pamphlet became the creed of the Patriots.

The Provincial and Confederal authorities took heavy punitive measures against the pamphlet, and tried to find out who wrote it. It was not until 1891, over a century after the pamphlet appeared, that it could be proven without doubt that the author had been prominent Patriot leader Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol (1741–1784).


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