Editing Batavian Republic (section)

====Anglo-Russian invasion====
{{Main|Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland}}
[[File:Slag bij Castricum, objectnr SA 4 (cropped).tif|thumb|right|The [[Battle of Castricum]], in which a Franco-Batavian army defeated the Anglo-Russian forces and ended the invasion.]]
The sagging popularity of the Republic did not escape the attention of the British intelligence services. However, because this intelligence was filtered through the eyes of Orangist agents in the Republic and émigrés in England, it was erroneously interpreted as possible support for an Orangist restoration. This caused the miscalculation that led to the ill-fated [[Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland]] in the peninsula of North Holland in 1799.<ref>Schama, p. 390.</ref>

Though the expedition ended in failure the members of the ''Uitvoerend Bewind'' became very nervous in the days before the [[Battle of Bergen (1799)|Battle of Bergen]]. The Agent for Foreign Affairs, [[Maarten van der Goes van Dirxland|Van der Goes]] who had been in favor of distancing the Republic from the French, chose this inopportune moment to secretly approach the King of Prussia as a mediator, with a scheme in which the Hereditary Prince was to become a kind of constitutional monarch in a constitution on the model of the American Constitution. The Republic would revert to its traditional neutrality, while Britain would occupy North Holland, and France [[Zeeland]]. The overture was rejected, and it caused a lot of embarrassment in the relations with the French Directory.<ref>The French demanded the expulsion from office of the "culprits"; Schama, p. 399.</ref> At this time [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] performed his coup of [[18 Brumaire]], establishing the [[French Consulate]]. The Franco-Batavian relations now entered a whole new era.