infamous for his abuse of political patronage. The matter came to a head when in January 1783 a member of the Utrecht (i.e. a ) proposed to disavow the appointment rights of the stadtholder, and in August 1783 a petition of members of the newly reconstituted urged the to no longer brook such interference. Attempts to come to an understanding with the stadtholder in the Fall of 1783 failed, because the latter insisted on his "due rights." Then in January 1784 an occasion presented itself to test the stadtholder's resolve, when a vacancy in the occurred. The accepted the challenge and, studiously ignoring the stadtholder, appointed a moderate member of the to the vacant post. But the honeymoon between the "democrats" and "aristocrats" did not last. On 23 April 1784 a draft of a new "constitution" for Utrecht province, to replace the 1674 Regulation, was published in the Utrecht Patriot newspaper , after the Utrecht States had imprudently invited all citizens to lodge their objections to the Regulations in early 1784. This draft of 117 articles proposed that henceforth the Utrecht city was to be popularly elected under a form of census suffrage in indirect elections. This relatively moderate proposal directly attacked the co-option rights of the . Another objectionable proposal was the institution of an elected body of 16 burgher representatives to sit in permanent session to hear and address grievances of citizens against the city government. The were not about to let go of their powers without a fight, but instead of getting into a direct confrontation with the democrats they at first tried to drown the proposal in red tape. The States drafted a far more conservative counter-proposal and tried to push this through by subterfuge. This elicited a strong response of the Utrecht in the form of a petition opposing that counter-draft. The also elected a group of 24 representatives (among whom Ondaatje), which called themselves the "Constituted," to conduct direct negotiations with the . The Constituted soon set themselves up as a rival power center to the , and started acting like the proposed Burgher Council from the draft-constitution. The negotiations fruitlessly dragged on and in January 1785 six companies of the approached the Constituted to urge them to take more drastic steps. The irate "shooters" elected a new group of representatives, called the "Commissioned," to permanently ensure the zeal of the Constituted. The grudgingly