Low Countries which is denominated Belgium is inconsiderable in superficial extent; yet, when we consider the fertility of its soil, the political and geographical peculiarity of its position in reference to France, to England, and to Germany -and, moreover, its natural and acquired wealth, the character of its inhabitants, and the events of which that country has been the theatre, it must be at once conceded that the importance of the subject is out of all proportion with the narrow limits of a kingdom, one of the smallest among European States. Considering the present condition of Europe-the changes that have taken place in France within the last five, and more especially within the last two years— the attitude of Russia, the uneasy and restless position of Germany, and the general sense of insecurity as to the future which prevails in each of those states, it cannot be thought inopportune to cast a glance on a country which has been for centuries the battle-field of Europe -the arena on which hostile armies have struggled for dominion or for victory. It was long ago said by Strada, that Mars, a traveller in all countries, had specially chosen his abode in Belgium; and although there is somewhat more of hyperbole than of history in this remark, yet it is certain that in ancient and medieval, as well as in modern times, Belgium has been a battle-field oftener than any other European country.

It is not our intention to enter into a record of transactions related by Cæsar or Tacitus, but without adverting to the times of Drusus or Germanicus-without dwelling on the exploits of Charlemagne, of Charles the Rash, or putting under contribution the Chronicles of Froissart, Monstrelet, and Comines, we need but come to the times of Charles V. and

Philip II. to prove that almost every province in Belgium has been the scene of some memorable contest or

and XV. Belgium enjoyed no respite from the certaminis gaudia. In 1744, 100,000 Frenchmen were in Flanders; and in 1745, the memorable year of the battle of Fontenoy, the greater part of Hainault and Brabant, as well as the city of Brussels itself, fell under the dominion of the French. From the period, indeed, of the peace of Aixla-Chapelle to the death of the Empress Maria Theresa, Belgium enjoyed unwonted repose. But soon after the accession of Joseph II., this repose was troubled by a monarch who was in advance of his people, and who wished to make them at a bound as intelligent and philosophical as himself.

The good feelings and benevolent intentions of this monarch have not been questioned by history; but it is now generally acknowledged that he was as much before his age

as some of his house in our own day have been behind it; and the consequence was, that his intentions were misinterpreted, and his policy misunderstood.

The people of the Low Countries had been, before his time, imbued with a great deal of the fanaticism of the Spaniards. The prevalence for a long series of years of the Spanish sway had taught them to admire the pompous and ceremonious observances of the Romancatholic faith, as practised in the Peninsula, and had accustomed them to look on processions of monks and friars, and communities of nuns and beguines as indispensable accessories of their faith and doctrine. When, therefore, Joseph, by his edicts from Vienna, sought with a stroke of his imperial pen to regulate and reform the religious institutions and discipline of Belgium, to lessen the number of religious houses, to diminish the numbers of monks and nunsto abolish several festivals and processions, and to correct the abuses prevailing in reference to her masses, and other points not necessary to

1853.]

mention here, he desired to make a revolution without the aid and against the wishes of his people-a people who were by no means prepared to go these lengths.

Revolutions of this or any other kind, as was profoundly said by the Abbé de Pradt, himself Archbishop of Mechlin, are never made, for they arrive of themselves and spontaneously in the full and proper time. To force them on an unwilling or reluctant nation is a proof rather of indiscreet and zealous enthusiasm than of legislative or executive wisdom. When, in addition to these mandates, Joseph by another edict declared the religious orders relieved from any dependance on their foreign superiors, and when he went the further length of forbidding the Belgian bishops to resort to the see of Rome to obtain those marriage dispensations, which they were henceforth, with his Royal and Imperial permission, to grant from their own authority, he discontented not only the people, but the clergy; and his subsequent suppression of monasteries and convents, and absorption into his own hands of public instruction, still further exacerbated general discontent. Nor were his political innovations, though some of them wise and salutary, more to the taste of the nation; and the consequence was, a struggle between the states and the monarch, commencing with sedition, and ending in revolution.

The dissensions, strifes, and anarchy produced by a monarch whose intentions were the most benevolent and patriotic, did not perish or die with him. It was not till his successor, Leopold, had made sundry efforts, by arms, by negotiation, and by concessions, that Belgium again submitted to Austrian dominion. The period of reunion was, however, short. The events which had occurred from 1781 to 1793, had rendered Belgium an easy prey to republican France. France appropriated and annexed the Belgian territory in a manner as short and summary as has been since adopted by our American neighbours; and

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when already for ten years Imperial, France was vanquished in 1814, Belgium was again restored to Europe, to become the creature of treaties and congresses. The Treaty of Paris, of the 30th May, 1814, promised to Holland an increase of territory; and this increase was made at the expense and to the prejudice of Belgium. The sad history of the fifteen years union of the two countries may be read, as M. Nothomb (now Belgian ambassador at Berlin) says, in these words of the treaty of Paris. The adjunction of Belgium to Holland created no new people, revivified no ancient nationality. Holland represented, in a material and mercantile sense, the acquirer, and Belgium the thing acquired. Bishop Burnet, in his History of his Own Times, tells us that a proposition of joining the Netherlands to Holland was made to William III., but that he rejected it on account of the difference of religious opinions; and in this the sagacious monarch seems to have acted with his usual knowledge and judgment. Another William of Holland, in 1814, acted however on different views, and the result was a forced union of two nations possessing no natural attraction, but rather a very great repulsion towards each other. There can be no doubt that among the principal statesmen flourishing forty years ago, there prevailed a cordial and friendly regard towards both the King of Holland and his eldest son and heir, the Prince of Orange, who had served in our armies and distinguished himself under our banners. But irrespective of the respect borne to the character of the father as an equitable and honest man, and the kindly feeling evinced towards the son, it would be difficult to discover any reasons of state for thus transferring one country to another as a simple addition. It is true, the treaty of London stipulated that the fusion of the countries should be intimate and complete ; and that the act of acceptance of the protocol of the London conference, signed at the Hague on the 21st July, stated that the two countries 'should only form one and the

same state, to be governed by the constitution already established in Holland, to be modified by common accord.' But it is easier to proclaim fusion on paper than to carry it into practice in reality. Whatever may be the good intentions of individuals, it is not always in the power of men to extinguish the bitter and deep-rooted hatreds, religious and political, which have been handed down from father to son during a succession of generations. For centuries previous to these protocols, the Belgians had been taught to despise the Dutch as a grasping, money-getting, unfeeling, and uncivilized people; and the Dutch had in their turn been taught to regard the Belgians as a superstitious, a bigoted, and a slavish race. Was it likely, then, that any rulers, however wise and well intentioned, could succeed in reconciling elements so discordant. Nations and communities of men do not in an instant forget differences of religion, or of civil and social habitudes, or those commercial and political rivalries which come home to the business and pockets of men.

We have no wish to malign the memory of the King of Holland. He was a man of business-like habits and excellent intentions, in whom a first rate merchant was spoiled. His object was to make his country prosperous, and to render Holland and Belgium great fields of commercial and manufacturing speculation. To these ends he dedicated his energies with a zeal worthy of Lombard or New Broad-street, and an activity comparable to that of Manchester or Rochdale. Sober in his habits, simple in his tastes, punctual in all his engagements, fond of money even to parsimony, he yet had so much of the merchant in his composition, that he would spare from his hoard large sums to advance any promising speculation presenting the probability of success. These qualities naturally endeared him to his Dutch subjects. But they found less favour at the hands of the Belgians, among whom his Majesty passed as a person of a cold, an austere, and an obstinate nature, as a king priding himself upon the fact of his being a Dutchman, and professing a different faith from the majority of his new

subjects. Differences such as these engendered some imaginary and some real grievances, which ultimately ripened into national animosity and universal discontent. Trial by jury, for instance, was abolished; the Dutch language was imposed on all functionaries, civil and military; partiality so gross as to amount almost to an exclusion of

Belgians was exhibited in the distribution of all offices, civil and military; taxation was unjustly and oppressively pressed on Belgium, and an attempt was made by the king to suppress the Roman-catholic colleges and schools, substituting in their place a philosophical college, and a species of State or Government education. These acts were as imprudent as those of Joseph the Second in 1786; indeed, still more imprudent, for King William had the failure of an able monarch thirty years before as a solemn warning. It was an expression of William, styled the Taciturn, that un roi ne peut pas par ordonnance altérer l'état du pays; yet in defiance of this axiom, and of a monitory example, the King of Holland persevered in his headlong course.

The result is well known. In the days of September, 1830, there occurred an émeute at Brussels, which cost him and his family the crown of Belgium, and which, in its results, contributed to place the sceptre in the hands of that wise and politic prince who now guides and governs Belgium under the name of Leopold I. Though wholly unprepared for the Belgian Revolution-though taken unawares by the want of judgment and dexterity exhibited by the Netherland statesmen, and the entire absence of energy and military skill exhibited by the Prince of Orange, and regretting the fall of William as a catastrophe, still the late Duke of Wellington, albeit fully aware of the gravity of the circumstances, refused to interfere by force of arms. That great and good man intimated to the Belgian deputation sent to England, that if they abstained from embroiling Europe, Great Britain would not interfere in their internal concerns.

For some months the position of affairs was anything but cheering. Though the prudence and talents of