First Salute - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [30]
A storm of diplomatic missives descended upon The Hague transmitting President Greathead’s accusations that the inhabitants of St. Eustatius had “daily and openly” furnished supplies to the Americans, had “assisted them in their treason and had become the protectors of their buccaneering”; that the action by the Baltimore Hero had taken place within range of St. Eustatius’ guns. That the American ship had been allowed to return afterward, so Greathead claimed, to the port of St. Eustatius, “apparently enjoying every protection,” was attributable to the unneutral permissiveness if not active connivance of St. Eustatius’ Governor de Graaff. Summoning de Graaff for an explanation, he demanded restitution to the owners of the May and insisted that the “abettors” be found, apprehended and suffer “condign punishment” as a “terror to others.” Going back to the prior outrage of the Andrew Doria, Greathead claimed without offering any evidence that the identity of the rebel flag was known to de Graaff when he saluted it. On the issue of the salute, he was even more indignant, calling for “exemplary atonement for the indignity offered to His Majesty’s colours by the honours paid by Fort Orange to His Rebel Subjects.”
In a wordy polemic he went on at length to deplore the “flagrant violation” of the many compacts existing between “our two courts” and the infringement of the law of nations in “extending assistance and avowed countenance to proscribed Rebels of Great Britain.… In no other light can these deluded people be lawfully considered … and the law of Nations recognizes no such right as that of Lawful War waged by subjects against their sovereign state and consequently these captures under the authority of their usurped powers can be but piratical depredations.… To the scandal of all Publick Faith and national honour it has remained for a Dutch Settlement to be the avowed abettor of their treasons and promotors of their piracies and for their High Mightinesses [the title used in diplomacy for the States General] to be the first publick recognizers of a flag hitherto unknown in the catalogue of national ensigns.” His magisterial rhythms and copious rhetoric flowed on. (It must always be an amazement how 18th century letter writers—even, and especially, officials—had the time and capacity to produce their sculptured sentences and perfection of grammar and mots justes, while 20th century successors can only envy the past and leave their readers painfully to pick their way through thickets of academic and the mud of bureaucratic jargon.)
The further accusation that the buccaneer was in fact co-owned by Van Bibber, the Maryland agent, and that he had promised shares in its prizes to a relative on the island, was emphatically denied by Mr. Van Bibber and a Mr. Aull, the alleged sharer in his piracy.
In final bitter reproach, Craister Greathead added that when given a chance to explain himself to the Governor of St. Kitts, de Graaff had refused to talk to him. For added effect, Governor Greathead arranged that his letter be delivered by the “respectable conveyance” of a member of His Majesty’s Council, no less than His Majesty’s Solicitor General. De Graaff was unimpressed. In a haughty letter of reply, he refused to respond to the summons or discuss the matter with President Greathead or anyone else from St. Kitts.
In answer to increasingly menacing protests of His Majesty George III, the States General claimed that neutrality required treating the Colonies the same as the Crown, and on that ground kept the Netherlands’ ports open to American ships. By implication this meant that the Netherlands recognized the American party in the struggle as an equal belligerent, not merely as rebels. Nevertheless, the Dutch Republic, divided between the pro-American party of Amsterdam, loyal to trade and its profits, and the pro-British