A certain number of improvements were therefore made after the war, but the incompetence of the admiralties was a big drag on progress. Grand Pensionary Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel therefore attempted to abolish them and reorganize the navy into a modern navy department, but he was thwarted in these attempts by vested interests. The state of the fleet, therefore, was dire when war with the revolutionary French republic broke out, and the Dutch Republic was eventually overrun by the French in early 1795.