toothless. Though Gogel was a lifelong democrat, never making concessions on his belief that the franchise should be universal (unlike other Patriot politicians, who in the course of events changed their views in a more authoritarian direction), as a technocrat he saw the advantage of being able to make his views prevail. His tax reforms were enacted in June, 1805, and put into operation on January 11, 1802. However, the final days of the Batavian Republic were passing rapidly. Gogel was a member of the Groot Besogne (Grand Commission) that helped to negotiate the transition to the Kingdom of Holland under king Louis Napoleon, however reluctantly. In 1806 this title was changed to Minister under the new kingdom. As such he had to deal with attempts of the old elites to water down his new system of taxation that had been implemented only a few months before over much opposition. However, at first he gained the support of the new king, who had been impressed by his warnings about the dire state of the Dutch economy at the time. Revenues under the new system were falling short of expectations, and the kingdom therefore had to rely even more than before on deficit financing. The credit of the Dutch state had now suffered so much, that it was no longer possible to float bond loans without the assistance of the Amsterdam merchant bankers that had previously only served foreign governments, like that of the United States, as intermediaries. Fortunately, the Dutch system for financing sovereign debt, foreign or domestic, was still unparalleled at the time. A few years later, however, the first benefits of the new system (enhanced revenues, reduced administrative costs, formation of a national fiscal bureaucracy) had finally been realized. Some of those reforms were of lasting importance. As the verponding (land tax) was an important new element of the system a kadaster had to be implemented. This had important beneficial effects in the sphere of Dutch civil law, also. Other persisting reforms: in 1807 he was able to enact a law to reform the Dutch coinage. He also was instrumental in the abolition of the guilds and other economic reforms, like the abolition of internal tariffs and other obstructions to trade. He was the first director of the predecessor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences under the Kingdom of Holland. Like king Louis, Gogel had