This article surveys previously underexamined American and British intelligence networks that operated in the Netherlands during the eighteenth century and demonstrates the relevance of the eighteenth-century Dutch Republic to the larger history of the Netherlands, early modern Europe, and the revolutionary Atlantic. The Dutch Republic's favourable geographic location, its postal services, its sophisticated press, and its mercantile economy made it an ideal place to extract information and build intelligence networks, shaping power politics in the eighteenth-century British Atlantic. Additionally, this article illustrates how these Anglo-American intelligence networks affected the Dutch Republic and the revolutionary Atlantic. In the late 1770s, American revolutionaries successfully deployed their intelligence network to unleash a propaganda campaign that aimed to convince the Dutch public of their cause. By infiltrating the liberal and sophisticated Dutch printing press, the American revolutionaries not only succeeded in fostering political support among the Dutch public; they also created a transatlantic intellectual exchange with the Dutch opposition that laid the foundations of the Dutch Patriot movement of the 1780s and ultimately the dissolution of the Dutch Republic as a whole in 1795.

本文对18世纪在荷兰开展业务的美国和英国情报网络进行了未经充分审查的调查，并展示了18世纪的荷兰共和国与荷兰，近代早期的欧洲和革命性大西洋的悠久历史之间的相关性。荷兰共和国优越的地理位置，邮政服务，先进的媒体以及商业经济使其成为提取信息和建立情报网络的理想之地，从而塑造了18世纪英国大西洋的权力政治。此外，本文还说明了这些英美情报网络如何影响荷兰共和国和革命性的大西洋。在1770年代后期，美国革命者成功地部署了他们的情报网络，发起了一场宣传运动，目的是说服荷兰公众注意他们的事业。通过渗透自由和复杂的荷兰印刷机，美国革命者不仅成功地在荷兰公众中赢得了政治支持，而且还成功地在荷兰民众中获得了政治支持。他们还与荷兰反对派进行了跨大西洋的知识交流，奠定了1780年代荷兰爱国者运动的基础，并最终在1795年解散了整个荷兰共和国。