came to a head in February 1787 when a group of Free-Corps officers, led by a Colonel Isaac van Goudoever forced entry to the council chamber in protest against an anti-Patriot move Dedel had engineered. Only the intervention of Hendrik Daniëlsz Hooft, a venerable prevented a fracas. On 3 April Goudoever returned at the head of 102 officers to demand that henceforth Amsterdam would only be represented by its pensionaries Van Berckel and Visscher (who were both trusted by the Patriots) in the States of Holland. Dedel replied with an attempt to come to an arrangement with the stadtholder in which Amsterdam would align itself with the stadtholderian regime in exchange for concessions by the stadtholder on the point of his right of appointment (which the States-Party had always opposed), and his help with mobilizing the . This conspiracy failed due to the obduracy of the stadtholder, but on 20 April 1787 an incendiary pamphlet, entitled ("The Treason Discovered"), made it public, and this incensed the Patriots. That night the city was abuzz with fervid Patriot activity. The Burgher Defense Council, which commanded the Free Corps, organised a petition (the "Act of Qualification") which was signed by 16,000 people, and the next day the Dam Square before the city hall was thronged with thousands of guild members, Patriot citizens and armed militiamen. The Amsterdam council was once more locked in chambers, not expected to emerge without a positive decision, and on the initiative of Hooft the was purged of the members whose dismissal had been demanded in the Act of Qualification. Amsterdam had belatedly joined the Patriot coalition. The rioting of the on 30 May 1787 did not change this. William May had to flee across the IJ. Other cities in Holland that had been holding out, like Rotterdam, where Pieter Paulus finally managed a purge of the , and several cities, like Delft, Dordrecht, Alkmaar, Hoorn, and Monnikendam were helped along by the "Flying Legion", a corps of 300 Free Corps members, and 200 horses, led by Adam Gerard Mappa, threatening violence. Delft's "liberation" gave the Patriots command of the largest arsenal in Holland province in the Summer of 1787. A creeping civil war Many historians would deny that the political upheavals in the Dutch Republic during the years 1785, 1786 and 1787 amounted to a civil war. It is true that compared to the French revolution the Patriot