the victims of an odious deception, and we should be the laughing-stock of Europe. The country has no need of highnesses or excellencies, but of men able to govern and to defend it.

"The family of the Nassaus was always fatal to Belgium; even when it directed the insurrection against the Spanish despotism, it agitated and divided the citizens, by raising the standard of Protestantism. The Nassaus have always manifested their insatiable ambition: they never pardoned an injury."

During a two days' discussion, scarcely a voice was raised on behalf of the dethroned family. The motion, indeed, was opposed; but the members who opposed it resisted it more on the ground that it was unnecessary and inexpedient, than because it was in any respect unjust or improper in itself. One member thought it would be time enough to pass judgment on the House of Orange, when Congress came to elect the sovereign head of the state. Others held it to be a dangerous proposal, so long as that very House of Orange remained masters of the citadel and squadron of Antwerp, possessing the power of destroying their commerce; but to this it was answered, that the allies would prevent all warlike operations. M. Stassart, the gentleman who, in the beginning of the year, had been deprived of his pension on account of his vote on the budget in the States General, now took ample vengeance, before the year was exexpired, by maintaining the propriety of depriving his former master of all chance of wearing the Belgic Crown. M.Gerlache, who had been a distinguished member of the opposition, in the States General,

I

declared himself hostile to the motion:-"I cannot be suspected of attachment to the Nassaus, whose measures I have always opposed, but I will not insult them when they are unfortunate. They have done some good to the country; but they sought to oppress and to denationalize the Belgians. The Congress has exercised an act of sovereignty in declaring the independence of Belgium. What does it want more? have heard it said, that the Nassaus are an infamous race; thus you seem to proscribe whole races. You are going to bind yourselves--you are going to bind your descendants: you can do neither. In the proposal you have caused the word Orange to be inserted: thus you except the collaterals. Will the children of the House of Orange be more guilty than those collaterals? The Nassaus are not without support; they have alliances with great powers-with Russia and Prussia. You furnish a pretext for a destructive war. You are not satisfied with passing over the family in choosing your chief; you wish to affront them also: will your declaration efface the family from the rank of powers? If you are able to maintain their exclusion by arms, your declaration is useless: if you are not, it is fatal. You depend on France, which experiences sufficient internal embarrassments, and which is only a republic, licentious rather than free." The motion of exclusion was carried by an overwhelming majority, 161 members voting for it, and only twenty-eight against it; and it was manifest that, even if this decision had been delayed, there would have been no room for any member of the reigning

family, when the moment of election should have come. But who should fill the place of the expelled family was a very different question. To what reigning family should be attached the influence which would necessarily arise from giving a king to the Netherlands, was a matter in which the Congress would scarcely expect to be allowed, by the other powers of Europe, an absolute and unrestricted choice. The allied sovereigns had consented to acknowledge the independence of Belgium as a separate state; they had not ventured to offend the popular voice by even attempting to retain and secure its Crown for its former sovereign; they had secured for Belgium, by their interposition, the liberation of its territory; they would not fail in return to demand some share of influence in the selection of the family by whom its government was in future to be directed.

The remaining labours of the Congress consisted in a tedious discussion of the various chapters and articles of a Constitution, which had been prepared for them by a committee of the provisional government. It set out with formally declaring, that "the Belgian nation adopts for its colours, red, yellow, and black," and this great leading truth was followed by the usual axioms of all paper constitutions, such as "All powers emanate from the nation."-"All Belgians are equal in the eye of the law, and admissible to civil and military employments."-"Individual liberty is guaranteed.""Every one has a right to petition the public authorities." Its more practical articles declared, that the head of the state was hereditary and inviolable; his

ministers, whom he was to have the power of choosing and dismissing, being personally responsible for every act which they should countersign, and no act of the Crown being legal or valid, unless it was so countersigned. The sovereign was to have the power of making regulations and decrees necessary for the execution of the laws, without being able to suspend the laws themselves, or to dispense with their execution; and the courts and tribunals were not to apply these regulations and decrees, except so far as they should judge them conformably to the laws. He had the command of the army, and the power of declaring war, and making treaties of peace, alliance, and commerce; but no cession, addition, or exchange of territory could take place without an express law. The king was farther to enjoy the prerogative of convoking the Chambers, and of closing the session, but the Chambers were to assemble by right on the 5th of November every year, if not previously convoked, and were to remain assembled every year, at least month. The king might dissolve the elective Chamber, but the Act of Dissolution was to convoke the electors within forty days, and the Chamber within two months. He might, likewise, adjourn the Chambers; but the adjournment could not exceed one month, or be renewed during the same session, without the assent of the Chambers. The civil list was to be fixed at the commencement of a reign for its whole duration : but every other part of the public expenditure was to be voted annually.

one

The project of the Constitution,

as prepared by the provisional government, contained an elective Chamber and a Senate. The former was to consist of 100 members, to be elected from among all Belgians, native or naturalized, twenty-five years old, settled in the country, and not deprived by law of their civil or political rights. It was left to be determined by a subsequent law, what should be the franchise, and according to what subdivisions of the provinces the elections should be made. The Chamber, if not sooner dissolved, was to exist for four years, without any annual renewal of part of its members. The Deputies were to receive salaries. The members of the Senate were to be nominated by the Crown, their number being unlimited, but not under forty. Two constitutions were proposed for it; first, that the dignity should be hereditary, according to the right of primogeniture; or, secondly, that they should be appointed for life. In neither case, were they to receive salary, and it was necessary that they should pay, at least, 1,000 florins of land-tax on property situated in Belgium. After the Congress had wasted a great deal of time in discussing these different projects for forming a second Chamber, the Senate was finally rejected altogether.

In the mean time, all the cities of Belgium, none more than Brussels, were suffering deeply from the stagnation of trade and industry, which had necessarily accompanied these popular commotions. The insurrection, in its origin, had been marked by the most outrageous plundering of property; and although the poVOL. LXXII.

pulace had been subdued for a time, the progress of the quarrel had put arms into their hands, which it was neither safe nor prudent to call upon them to lay down. The burning of manufactories, and the destruction of machinery, had been widely perpetrated; in the towns there was no security that the rights of property would be observed for a single week by the excited populace, who found it more pleasant to plunder than to work, and from whom, moreover, their own excesses, and the unstableness of the existing state of society, had cut off the ordinary sources of labour. The suspension of hostilities only increased the mischief. The patriotic volunteers strangers to military discipline; and when there was no enemy to encounter, they wandered about in armed and lawless bands, carrying through the country pillage and alarm.

were

In Holland, the public opinion expressed no sorrow or regret at the dismemberment of the kingdom; the Dutch seemed to regard the separation with perfect satisfaction. They had some compensation, likewise, in seeing the expensive war which they had so long been compelled to wage in Java, against the native population, taking a more favourable turn. The Dutch troops under general Koch were so successful in their enterprises, that they at last succeeded in making prisoner Diepo Negoro, the active and persevering insurgent chief who had so long set them at defiance; and his capture was followed by the submission of most of the other rebel leaders.

[T]

N our last volume we recorded Germanic Diet against the duke of Brunswick, in the quarrel between him and his uncle, the king of England. The duke, in stead of obeying, prepared to quit his States for a time, and, by leaving them without any substitute for an executive government, to produce, at least, mischief and confusion. In leaving his Duchy, he ordered the officers of his government to hold no communication with the Assembly of the States, and the deliberations of that body were thus paralyzed. He interposed a similar obstacle in the way of the judicial power, and annulled, by his sovereign authority, some sentences passed by the Supreme Court. Amid

these freaks, the Diet, on the 2nd of April, despatched to him the decree, by which he was peremptorily enjoined to conform himself, within four weeks, to its former decision. As the expiry of that period approached, his royal highness showed no symptoms of

yielding. The king of Saxony, to

had been intrusted, put his troops in motion to occupy the duchy, but employed, at the same time, his friendly offices with the duke, to bring about a reconciliation. The advice, and the military preparations, did not remain entirely without effect. His royal highness acquiesced in part of what had been demanded of him, but he struggled hard against the public apology which he had been called on to make, by revoking an insulting edict. While the parties were labouring to agree on the terms in which the revocation should be couched, the king of England died, and the duke was allowed a breathing-time.

This breathing-time his royal highness employed in rendering himself, if possible, more hated and despised among his subjects than he was already; while the examples of France and Belgium were shewing the facility with which governments might be changed, and dynasties overturned.

The duke either foresaw a coming storm, or intended some still madder exploit of his own. On Monday, the 6th of September, he had planted a number of cannon in different parts of the town; and the discontent, which had been accumulating among his subjects, immediately broke out. On his return from the theatre in the evening, he was pelted by the mob, which had assembled to await him, and he was saved from their fury only by the speed of his horses. The populace then crowded towards the palace. The commanding officer came forth, and informed them, he was deputed by his royal highness to learn their demands. The answer was, that the cannon should be removed that the Chambers, which had been introduced under the guardianship of the king of England, should be acknowledged that the duke should remain at home, instead of running away to escape from the sentence of the Diet and that he should not send his money out of the country. The general retired, and soon after returned with a declaration, upon his honour, that his royal highness had acquiesced in all these demands. The following morning, the town-magistracy, alarmed at the state of things, assembled the citizens, and went in a deputation to receive directions, pursuant to the promise which had thus been given. The duke, who had recovered his confidence, only replied, that he had planted sixteen pieces of cannon in good stations, and left the room. On this the burghers, alarmed at the prospect of a conflict in the street between the mob and the military, determined to arm themselves, and requested permission so to do, pro

mising to act in concert with the soldiers, for the preservation of public order; but the duke would not hear of it, except on condition that the citizens should be armed merely with pikes and sabres, and should not come near the palace. As evening came on, however, and the populace grew more noisy, the duke became more alarmed. Being informed by the commandingofficer of the troops, that the military could not be depended on, he sent to the magistracy, and requested them to undertake the defence of his palace; but it was already too late; and the citizens, by his own instructions, had no fire-arms. They assembled, however, with such weapons as they had, but were immediately disarmed by the mob. In the yard of the palace the military were drawn up, amounting to about 120 cavalry, and 800 infantry, with several pieces of cannon; but, as had been predicted, they refused to fire. The castle forms three sides of a square, with continuations to the wings, running parallel to the central building. The crowd immediately began to demolish the windows, and soon after the doors, and having effected an entrance, the duke was obliged to fly for his life. A party of Hussars, ordered to the back of the palace, received him in the midst of them, and, with some officers, rode off at full speed for the frontiers, where he dismissed them. The castle was then set on fire by the mob at the corner where they had broken in, and as the wind was unfavourable to the progress of the flames, they had full time to plunder the edifice of its magnificent furniture, which, however, they demolished, previous to throwing it out of the window. The military