San Diego Sarah on 23 Feb 2022  •  Link

In 1660, William Nieupoort was sent on missions to France and England. Louis XIV of France offered him a post in France that he refused. He had been warned against the imperialist and mercantilist French policy and wanted to move to Constantinople. He was impressed by Jan Swammerdam, who was travelling in France to study, and remained his firm supporter for the rest of his life.
In the same year, 1664, a treaty with France was followed by the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the Triple Alliance.
In 1669, Nieupoort bought a plot in a backstreet and built a house (Blijenburg) in 's-Gravenhage and embellished it with paintings and Turkish rugs.
In that year Nieupoort became mayor of Amsterdam.
In 1672, he was nominated as the successor to Johan de Witt, not being a hard core republican.
Losing the favour of stadholder William III of Orange, an attempt was made on Nieupoort's life; it is said he was shocked and burnt part of his furniture.
In one of his letters he wrote of the fantastic expansion of trade and imperialism in India and America. He also noticed that the Dutch Republic had had for 150 years more soldiers than all the other Christian countries put together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coe…

San Diego Sarah on 23 Feb 2022  •  Link

IGNORE THE ABOVE ... That's taken from the bio on Dutch Ambassador Van Beuningen, and I substituted the wrong name! Don't ask me why ... I won't post any more tonight because clearly the brain's not functioning right.

San Diego Sarah on 19 Jun 2022  •  Link

Highlights from his Wikipedia page:

Willem Nieupoort (1607, Schiedam – 1678, The Hague) was a Dutch States Party politician, ambassador to the Commonwealth of England for the Dutch Republic, and commissioner in the Dutch delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Westminster (1654) after the First Anglo-Dutch War.

Willem Nieupoort was the son of Willem Nieupoort, town clerk of Schiedam. He studied Literature in France.
Next Nieupoort became secretary to Albert Joachimi, ambassador of the States-General of the Netherlands at the Court of St. James's in 1625.

Back in the Netherlands, Nieupoort became a member of the Schiedam vroedschap in 1629, and later a pensionary of that city.
He represented the city in the States of Holland and the States-General.

After the death of William II, Nieupoort played a role in the States-Party revolution that created the First Stadtholderless Period.

The States of Holland first sent Willem Nieupoort to Friesland and Groningen to convince those States to take part in the constitutional convention of 1651.
Next he was sent to the States of Zeeland to win their support for abolishing the office of Captain-General of the States Army.
Both were dangerous missions as the provinces were hotbeds of Orangism and hostile to the ideas.

In 1653, after the First Anglo-Dutch War, Nieupoort was an ambassador to the Commonwealth to negotiate peace with Cromwell, together with Hieronymus van Beverningh, Paulus van de Perre, and Allart Pieter van Jongestall.

As a confidants of Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, Nieupoort and van Beverningh followed secret instructions which the other 2 members were unaware of.
The secret annex to the Treaty of Westminster (1654) required the States pass the Act of Seclusion, which the other 2 negotiators opposed.
When the secret became known a political crisis ensued, and the States of Friesland prosecuted Nieupoort and van Beverningh for treason.
They took an oath of innocence, and the prosecutions died.

After the treaty was concluded Amb. Nieupoort remained in England as ambassador to the Commonwealth. His mission was to negotiate a maritime treaty to protect neutral shipping in time of war, and to try to repeal the Navigation Act of 1651.
He failed.

During the Second Northern War, when the Dutch Republic tried to maintain the balance of power in the Baltic, usually siding with Sweden's opponents, especially Denmark, it was Amb. Nieupoort 's role to keep the Commonwealth neutral.
He succeeded.

After the Restoration, Amb. Willem Nieupoort was recalled, as he was a persona non grata with Charles II.

Amb. Willem Nieupoort resumed political work in the Republic. He was not involved in the negotiations of the Treaty of Breda (1667) after the Second Anglo-Dutch War (unlike Amb. van Beverningh and Amb. van Jongestall).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wil…

San Diego Sarah on 21 Jun 2022  •  Link

Turns out John Evelyn had met Amb. Willem Nieupoort before the Diary and made this observation:

15 November, 1659.
Dined with the Dutch Ambassador.
He did in a manner acknowledge that his nation mind only their own profit, do nothing out of gratitude, but collaterally as it relates to their gain, or security; and therefore the English were to look for nothing of assistance to the banished King.
This was to me no very grateful discourse, though an ingenuous confession.

@@@

John Evelyn's Diary – he and Mary Browne Evelyn live at Saye's Court, Deptford.

http://brittlebooks.library.illin…