Stapelbroek, Koen (2017) Reinventing the Dutch Republic: Franco-Dutch commercial treaties from Ryswick to Vienna. In: Alimento, Antonella, and Stapelbroek, Koen, (eds.) The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century: balance of power, balance of trade. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 195-215.

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Abstract

It is a commonplace that the Dutch Republic—from the time of Grotius to the end of the eighteenth century—related its own freedom to the idea of free trade between nations. The United Provinces as a carrying nation of products produced by other states lived off trade and had an interest in the separation of commercial exchange from politics. The series of commercial treaties that were concluded at the peace of Utrecht in 1713 apparently fit with this Dutch perspective. This chapter shows that the reality of Utrecht did not fit with classical Dutch ideas on the right principles of foreign trade and reconstructs the pre-history and legacy of the 1713 Franco-Dutch commercial treaty. With the rise of new French policies Dutch hopes and expectations about a renewed treaty with France lingered until the 1780s giving way to a very slow acceptance and eventually resignation about the end of the Dutch state as a trade republic.

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