elicit a humble apology. On 23 March the 19 members reoccupied their seats, and opened criminal proceedings against Ondaatje and other instigators of the events of 11 March. Sicherman could have his appointment back, but he declined; the council therefore left the vacancy unfilled. But the democrats were back in August and again in September with demonstrations following the established paradigm. Eventually, end December 1785, things came to a head when in a final demonstration of Free Corps strength the was forced to capitulate. On 20 December they promised to adopt a democratic city constitution within three months. And indeed, on 20 March 1786, while the Free Corps again occupied the central square in silent menace, while a blizzard blew, the allowed several of its members to formally abjure the old Government Regulation. On 2 August 1786 an elected Burgher College was installed as the new city council. In the Spring of 1787 similar events took place in Amsterdam. The political situation in that city had long been very different than in Utrecht. The Amsterdam belonged to the old States-Party faction and were as such opposed to the stadtholder long before the Patriot movement started to rear its head. Its pensionary, Engelbert François van Berckel, together with the pensionaries of Dordrecht (Cornelis de Gijselaar) and of Haarlem (Adriaan van Zeebergh) formed an anti-stadtholderian triumvirate in the States of Holland during the days of the war with Great Britain. But this was all based on the interests of Amsterdam as a mercantile city. The Amsterdam were in no mood for "democratic" experiments that would undermine their privileges. The more the democrats gained influence in other cities, the more the Amsterdam drew closer to their Orangist enemies, and the stadtholder's regime. Van Berckel lost the initiative to Orangist like Joachim Rendorp, and Willem Gerrit Dedel Salomonsz, who formed an Orangist minority within the Amsterdam . Amsterdam had a large Free Corps, consisting of 55 companies, but the old , under Orangist command, was still a rival armed force. Besides, the Patriots did not have a monopoly on mob violence, as the workers in the Amsterdam shipbuilding industry, the so-called ("Ax-men"), were a strongly pro-Orange political force in the city. Patriot political clubs were rivaled by Orangist political clubs. In sum, the political forces were more evenly balanced than in other cities. And this paralyzed the Amsterdam in the Spring of 1787. Things