DAENDELS, HERMAN WILLEM

(1762–1818)

   Statesman and general. Daendels joined the party of the so-called Patriots, which tried, in the 1780s, to reform the constitution of the Republic. After the Patriots’ failure and the restoration of the Orangist regents in 1787, Daendels sought refuge in France. In 1794, he joined the revo lutionary army of Gen. Jean-Charles Pichegru that overran the old Dutch Republic. In 1798, Daendels took part in the radical coup that installed a government that strove for a democratic military consti tution in the Batavian Republic. King Louis Napoleon in 1807 ap pointed Daendels as governor-general to defend the Netherlands East Indiesagainst the British. One of his projects was the construc tion of a new strategic postal route on Java. After the Restoration in 1815, King William I appointed Daendels governor of the Dutch Castle of St. George d’Elmina on the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where he died.