First edition of an eyewitness account of the massacre at Woerden on the night of 23 to 24 November 1813. Following the collapse of Napoleonic rule in the Netherlands, the inhabitants of Woerden openly celebrated the return of the House of Orange. In response, some 1600 French soldiers under General Gensy and Colonel Falba returned to the town, where they killed around 50 inhabitants and plundered houses and other buildings. Jan Meulman (1767-1847), a prominent resident of Woerden and justice of the peace, witnessed the events and wrote the present account for the benefit of the victims.
The work is illustrated with eight plates engraved by Willem van Senus (1773-1851) after drawings by Jan Willem Pieneman (1779-1853), later one of the best-known Dutch history painters of the nineteenth century. They depict scenes from the violence in Woerden. The seventh plate shows Meulman himself being threatened by a French soldier. The work concludes with a poem on the events by M. Schutte Hildebrand, dated October 1814.
The work includes two appendices with lists of the aid sent to Woerden after the massacre. The first lists contributors from throughout the Netherlands and the sums they donated, while the second lists the towns and villages that provided contributions in kind. A second edition, with the same text and plates but printed in smaller type, appeared with the same publisher the following year. The work was reissued at Dordrecht in 1826.
The boards are lightly rubbed, with a stain at the foot of the back board. The leaves are lightly browned and occasionally foxed, a stain in the lower inner margin throughout. Otherwise a wide-margined copy in good condition. Muller, Ned. Historieplaten, no. 5854; NNBW, 4, col. 981; cf. B.M. van Dijk on Jan Meulman in: Utrechtse biografieën, 5 (1994), pp. 82-86.