BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY, OF 3000 COTEMPORARY PUBLIC BRITISH AND FOREIGN, OF ALL RANKS AND PROFESSIONS. SECOND EDITION. VOL. III. PART I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR GEO. B. WHITTAKER, AVE-MARIA LANE. 010.5 PUBLIC MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES. NAGEL D' AMPSEN. (A. W. C. BARON DE,) THIS nobleman was secretary-of-state of the United Provinces, and their ambassador in England at the period when Holland was invaded in 1795, by the French, under Pichegru. On the dissolution of the old Dutch government, he immediately sent in his resignation, and continued to reside in England as a private individual. When the House of Orange was recalled to Holland, in 1814, the Baron de Nagel was appointed secretary-of-state for foreign affairs. It was in this capacity that he notified to Lord Clancarty, the British ambassador, that his sovereign, in compliance with the wish of the Prince-regent, had abolished the slavetrade. In March 1815, as soon as the landing of Napoleon was known, he requested the ministers of Russia and Prussia, and the chargé d'affaires of Austria, to meet at his house, where he communicated to them the determination of the sovereign-prince to assume immediately the title of King of the Netherlands, though the treaty which gave to him that dignity was not yet arrived from Vienna. The reason which he assigned for this step was, that the circumstances of the moment, and the fermentation excited in men's minds by the invasion of Buonaparte, rendered it imprudent to leave the Beigic provinces any longer in a provisional and uncertain situation. This reason was deemed valid by the ambassadors, who, in consequence, without waiting for orders from their courts, went directly to congratulate the VOL, III. B |