The remaining three years of the Brunswick regime were uneventful in the home country.  Differences with the English East India Company however led to the expulsion of the Dutch from their trading settlements on the Hooghley and Coromandel; and in Berbice there was a serious revolt of the negro slaves, which, after hard fighting in the bush, was put down with much cruelty.  The young Prince of Orange on the attainment of his eighteenth year, March 8,1766, succeeded to his hereditary rights.  His grandmother, Maria Louisa, to whose care he had owed much, had died on April 9, in the previous year.  During the interval the Princess Caroline had taken her place as regent in Friesland.

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CHAPTER XXIV

WILLIAM V. FIRST PERIOD, 1766-1780

Of all the stadholders of his line William V was the least distinguished.  Neither in appearance, character nor manner was he fitted for the position which he had to fill.  He had been most carefully educated, and was not wanting in ability, but he lacked energy and thoroughness, and was vacillating and undecided at moments when resolute action was called for.  Like his contemporary Louis XVI, had he been born in a private station, he would have adorned it, but like that unhappy monarch he had none of the qualities of a leader of men in critical and difficult times.  It was characteristic of him that he asked for confirmation from the Provincial Estates of the dignities and offices which were his by hereditary right.  In every thing he relied upon the advice of the Duke of Brunswick, whose methods of government he implicitly followed.  To such an extent was this the case that, soon after his accession to power, a secret Act was drawn up (May 3, 1766), known as the Act of Consultation, by which the duke bound himself to remain at the side of the stadholder and to assist him by word and deed in all affairs of State.  During the earlier years therefore of William V’s stadholderate he consulted Brunswick in every matter, and was thus encouraged to distrust his own judgment and to be fitful and desultory in his attention to affairs of State.

One of the first of Brunswick’s cares was to provide for the prince a suitable wife.  William II, William III and William IV had all married English princesses, but the feeling of hostility to England was strong in Holland, and it was not thought advisable for the young stadholder to seek for a wife in his mother’s family.  The choice of the duke was the Prussian Princess Wilhelmina.  The new Princess of Orange was niece on the paternal side of Frederick the Great and on the maternal side of the Duke of Brunswick himself.  The marriage took place at Berlin on October, 4 1767.  The bride was but sixteen years of age, but her attractive manners and vivacious cleverness caused her to win the popular favour on her first entry into her adopted country.