 Though the expedition ended in failure the members of the Uitvoerend Bewind became very nervous in the days before the Battle of Bergen. The Agent for Foreign Affairs, Van der Goes who had been in favor of distancing the Republic from the French, chose this inopportune moment to secretly approach the King of Prussia as a mediator, with a scheme in which the Hereditary Prince was to become a kind of constitutional monarch in a constitution on the model of the American Constitution. The Republic would revert to its traditional neutrality, while Britain would occupy North Holland, and France Zeeland. The overture was rejected, and it caused a lot of embarrassment in the relations with the French Directoire. At this time Napoleon Bonaparte performed his coup of 18 Brumaire, establishing the French Consulate. The Franco-Batavian relations now entered a whole new era.
