George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[57] court, Danish subjects were forbidden to send,

Chap. I.} 1778.

even to Danish West India islands, munitions of war, lest they should find their way to the United States.¹ The Danish and Norwegian ports were closed against prizes taken by American privateers. Yet, from its commercial interests, Denmark was forced to observe and to claim the rights of a neutral.

Freedom has its favorite home on the mountains or by the sea. Of the two European republics of the last century, the one had established itself among the head-springs of the Rhine, the other at its mouth. America sheltered itself under the example of Switzerland, which rivalled in age the oldest monarchies, and, by its good order and industry, morals and laws, proved the stability of self-government, alike for the Romanic and for the Germanic race. Of the compatibility of extensive popular confederacies with modern civilization, Switzerland removed every doubt. Haldemand, a much-trusted brigadier in the British service, was by birth a Swiss; but England was never able to enlist his countrymen in the rank and file of her armies. The United States sought no direct assistance from Switzerland, but gratefully venerated their forerunner. Had their cause been lost, Alexander Hamilton would have retreated with his bride ‘to Geneva, where nature and society were in their greatest perfection.’²

The deepest and the saddest interest hovers over the republic of the Netherlands, for the war between England and the United States prepared its grave.