French-backed Dutch radicals displaced the stadtholder and established the Batavian Republic, but the new state was neither revolutionary enough for France nor broadly accepted at home. It also had to pay for a 25,000-man French army stationed in the Netherlands, making protection look increasingly like occupation. The Kew Letters instructed Dutch governors and garrisons to cooperate with Britain against France, yet William of Orange was not a monarch whose orders automatically settled colonial allegiance. Officials abroad therefore faced divided loyalties between the old regime, the Batavian government, and local interests. This ambiguity helps explain why resistance could be hesitant even before British troops arrived.
Chapter · 39:37-43:50
Batavian uncertainty and the Kew Letters
French occupation and Dutch political division left colonial commanders uncertain whether to follow William of Orange's Kew Letters or the new Batavian order.