Abstract
ON 9 October 1787 the Amsterdam banker Henry Hope addressed himself in a detailed letter to the Russian court banker Richard Sutherland. Two months earlier a new war had broken out between Russia and Turkey and Henry Hope was very keen to show Sutherland that in this situation Russia was in urgent need of a foreign loan. The war, he wrote, would impose an additional burden on the already inadequate Russian resources and force the country to seek help abroad. A loan in Amsterdam offered the best solution; this would enable Russia to meet its needs ‘in various parts of Europe’. Moreover it would reduce the strain on the exchange rate of the rouble. The predicament of the Dutch Republic seemed however scarcely favourable for floating a new loan: at that moment a Prussian army had intervened on behalf of the Prince of Orange and was besieging Amsterdam, where a group of radical Patriots intended to make a last stand. But once the situation in Amsterdam returned to normal, Hope was confident Dutch investors could be persuaded to subscribe to a small loan of, for instance, 1,500,000 guilders.
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References
M.G. Buist, At Spes Non Fracta, Hope & Co. 1770–1815 (The Hague, 1974), p. 95.
I am deeply indebted to J. C. Riley for allowing me to read some chapters from his forthcoming book on the Amsterdam capital market and international finance in the eighteenth century.
H.P.H. Jansen, Hollands voorsprong (Leiden, 1976), pp. 13–14.
B.E. de Muinck, Een regentenhuishouding onnstreeks 1700 (The Hague, 1965), pp. 21–2,26,84–91; J.G. van Dillen, Van rijkdom en regenten. Handboek tot de economische en sociale geschiedenis van Nederland tijdens de republiek (The Hague, 1970), pp. 457–8.
Ibid., 458–9; J.E. Elias, De vroedschap van Amsterdam, 1578–1795 (2 vol., Amsterdam, 1903-5), II, 1046–50.
Buist, Spes, pp. 19–20.
E.E. de Jong-Keesing, De economische crisis van 1763 te Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1939), pp. 121, 159–60; W.P. Sautijn Kluit, De Amsterdamsche beurs in 1763 en 1773 (Amsterdam, 1865), pp. 3–8, 10–13.
Elias, Vroedschap, II, 798, 1059.
Buist, Spes, pp. 480–3.
A.C. Carter, Getting, Spending and Investing in Early Modern Times. Essays on Dutch, English and Huguenot Economic History (Assen, 1975 ), p. 30.
Gedenkstukken der algemeene geschiedenis van Nederland van 1795 tot 1840 (ed. H.T. Colenbrander, 22 vol., The Hague, 1905–22), Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, Grote Serie 1, I, 423–4.
E.H. Kossmann, “The Crisis of the Dutch State 1780–1813, Nationalism, Federalism, Unitarism”, Britain and the Netherlands IV Metropolis, Dominion and Province (ed. J.S. Bromley and E.H. Kossmann, The Hague, 1971 ), p. 173.
Buist, Spes,ch. vi.
P.J. van Winter,Het aandeel van den amsterdamschen handel aan den opbouw van het amerikaansche gemeenebest (2 vol., The Hague, 1927–33), II, 386–7; Buist, Spes,pp. 192–7.
In 1820 the first Russian loan after the Napoleonic period was floated on the Dutch market. In 1818 Hope & Co. took part with Baring Bros. in a series of loans for the French Government, in order to meet the war indemnity to the former allies: J.J. Weeveringh, Handleiding tot de geschiedenis der staatsschulden (2 vol., Haarlem, 1852–5), II, 678; V.A. Nigohosian, La libération du territoire français après Waterloo (1815–1818) (Paris, 1929), pp. 67, 74, 147–8.
Buist, Spes,p. 89.
Ibid.,390, 394, 403.
E.g. the Spanish loan of cfl. 30,000,000 in 1807. This included a clause which allowed the conversion of an earlier loan at 95 per cent although the bonds then stood at around 60 per cent; ibid., 336.
Van Winter, Aandeel, II, 466–7; J.C. Riley, “Life Annuity-based loans on the Amsterdam Capital Market toward the end of the eighteenth century”, Economisch-en sociaal-historisch jaarboek, XXXVI (1973), 113 – 25.
Buist, Spes,p. 131.
Ibid., 96–8.
Mid., 48.
Joh. de Vries, De economische achteruitgang der republiek in de achttiende eeuw (Amsterdam, 1959), p. 68.
Van Winter, Aandeel,I, 191.
Van Winter, Aandeel, II,ch. x; Buist, Spes,pp. 57–60, 188–90.
Van Winter, Aandeel,II, 187.
Buist, Spes,pp. 86–7.
Carter, Getting, Spending and Investing,pp. 32–5.
Dépêches van Thulemeyer, 1763–1788” (ed. R. Fruin and H.T. Colenbrander), Werken uitgegeven door het historisch genootschap,3rd series, XXX (1912), 90, 102, 132, 168–9, 173, 189, 192, 213, 244, 270–1, 278–9, 283–4, 292, 294, 296; Buist, Spes,p. 257.
F. Crouzet, “Capital Formation in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution”, Capital Formation in the Industrial Revolution (ed. F. Crouzet, London, 1972), pp. 172, 183, 184, 190.
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Buist, M.G. (1977). The Sinews of War: The Role of Dutch Finance in European Politics (c. 1750–1815). In: Duke, A.C., Tamse, C.A. (eds) Britain and the Netherlands. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7518-8_6
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