The prominence of the Dutch in international commerce, mixed with the trade of their press, made the 18th-century Dutch Republic an unrivalled information hub. Ambassadors and unofficial brokers appearing for international governments or for themselves descended on the Netherlands to purchase affect and silence opponents. Within the course of, they turned the streets of Amsterdam and The Hague into frontlines in a European confrontation.
One such incident on this battle started on 15 September 1711, when James Dayrolle, an English envoy in The Hague, wrote to Whitehall complaining about an incendiary pamphlet that had appeared in a bookshop a number of days earlier. The offensive work was a Jacobite pamphlet, Formulair de Serment d’Abjuration (‘Type of the Oath of Abjuration’), which criticised Queen Anne, whom the Jacobites considered an illegal usurper. Dayrolle promptly complained to the Dutch authorities in regards to the pamphlet. Keen to make sure that their press didn’t give offence to a detailed ally, the Courtroom of Holland noticed to it that Formulair’s printer, Mattias Rogguet, was arrested and brought in for questioning.
Rogguet had printed the pamphlet, however on whose directions? Dayrolle initially suspected the pope’s undercover agent within the Republic, who he described as ‘a person who does no good right here’. However informants additionally tipped him off a few shadowy determine known as Corticelli. An Italian who usually resided in London, Corticelli had, Dayrolle discovered, made a number of journeys to Holland lately and was allegedly planning to print extra pamphlets.
Rogguet was interrogated by the Dutch authorities however he had been within the enterprise for 25 years and was used to undesirable consideration from Dutch magistrates, having beforehand been rebuked for printing a pamphlet criticising Queen Anne’s father, James II, on the eve of William of Orange’s invasion of England in 1688. Rogguet admitted to printing Formulair, however refused to say who had handed him the textual content.
With Rogguet declining to surrender names, the Dutch magistrates resorted to draconian measures and, on 2 October 1711, Dayrolle reported that the Courtroom of Holland had ordered Rogguet to shut his store ‘without end’. As Dayrolle famous, this was a harsh sentence, ‘so seldom, so severely inflicted on the like instances’. The early fashionable e book commerce was, like most different companies, a household affair. By banning Rogguet from printing, the magistrates weren’t solely depriving Rogguet, but additionally his descendants, of a livelihood.
The severity of the sentence labored. The day after it was delivered Dayrolle wrote that Rogguet had come to him ‘to cry mercy and commiseration for a spouse and a number of other youngsters’. The printer insisted that he had printed the pamphlet ‘as a novelty’, with out figuring out its contents and having been assured that it ‘contained nothing of consequence’. Dayrolle struck a cut price with Rogguet. He would intercede with the Dutch authorities, in addition to with Queen Anne, to revive Rogguet – so long as he revealed who had handed him Formulair. Rogguet relented: it was Corticelli.
As he labored to revive Rogguet’s place, Dayrolle additionally moved in opposition to Corticelli. On 6 October Dayrolle wrote to Whitehall that he had personally questioned Corticelli, with out involving the Dutch authorities. Whereas the Italian confessed that he had delivered Formulair to Rogguet, he claimed that he had achieved so with ‘no design of getting it printed’. Corticelli additionally claimed to haven’t any information of who had despatched the pamphlet to him, claiming he had acquired the textual content with none accompanying info. Dayrolle was unconvinced and concluded his letter promising that ‘I’ll endeavour to oblige him a method or one other to make a extra honest confession’.
To this finish Dayrolle went to the Courtroom of Holland, which secretly ordered its brokers to seize Corticelli, however he had already fled The Hague for Amsterdam. On 9 October Dayrolle reported that the Dutch authorities had been conscious that Corticelli was in Amsterdam and had been ‘in pursuit of him’.
Dayrolle had additionally found that Corticelli was not working alone, however as half of a bigger community smuggling Jacobite propaganda from their court-in-exile outdoors Paris into London by means of Holland. Dayrolle had additionally learnt that Corticelli was receiving and sending his letters by means of one other Italian, a chocolatier known as Benacci based mostly in Amsterdam.
Per week later, nevertheless, Dayrolle might solely report that the Dutch magistrates had seemed for Corticelli in Amsterdam however to no avail. After one other week, Corticelli assumed that it was protected for him to return to The Hague. Dayrolle, nevertheless, rapidly discovered of his return, and ‘the identical night time’ that Corticelli arrived in The Hague the Dutch magistrates seized him. Regardless of the proof in opposition to him, Corticelli continued to disclaim any information of who had despatched Formulair to him. His claims of innocence had been rendered but thinner when Dayrolle found that Corticelli had acquired ‘a number of photos’ of James Stuart, whom Jacobites considered the reputable king, and his sister, from Paris, which he had ‘forwarded to England’.
At this level Dayrolle deferred the matter of Corticelli to his quick grasp, the principal British ambassador in The Hague, Thomas Wentworth, the first Earl of Strafford. No additional point out was product of the affair and Corticelli’s destiny is unknown. We do know, nevertheless, that the British authorities interceded to cut back Rogguet’s sentence to a considerable nice – presumably at Dayrolle’s urging. The Corticelli affair demonstrates that early fashionable diplomacy was not the only protect of elite politicians. It was additionally a world inhabited by very peculiar people, from printers to chocolatiers.
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Basil Bowdler is a PhD scholar on the College of St Andrews researching Anglo-Dutch information tradition and diplomacy within the late-Seventeenth and early-18th centuries.
