1830.] The Netherlands. 437 



limbs, the conscription tore away the limbs themselves. The nobles 

 lived on French pay, the people on the air. But Napoleon fell at last. He 

 had done his work, and scourged the profligacy of the continent. The 

 scourge was now to be thrown away. He was undone at Moscow; the rest 

 of his career was only the struggle of the wild beast against his hunters, 

 while a hundred arrows are drinking his life's blood. He had received 

 his mortal wound in the Russian snows. He was now driven to his 

 lair, and dragged from it in chains for the sport of mankind. 



In 1813 the French troops took their leave of Holland. The Dutch 

 recalled their Stadtholder. But the fashion of the times had changed. 

 Republics were on the wane, royalty was in the ascendant. Kings 

 were becoming popular once more ; such are the miracles of time, or 

 the caprices of fortune. On the 1st of December, 1813, the prince 

 announced himself as having come to settle all disputes on the subject 

 of government. 



" The uncertainty which formerly existed as to the executive power, 

 shall no longer paralyze your efforts. It is not William the Sixth 

 Stadtholder, whom the nation recals, without knowing what to hope 

 or expect from him. It is William the First, who offers himself as 

 sovereign prince of this free country/' 



The Netherlands were cleared of the French armies at the same time. 

 The Treaty of Paris (30th of May, 1814) disposed of their govern- 

 ment. By the sixth article it was declared that " Holland, placed 

 under the sovereignty of the House of Orange, should receive an 

 increase of territory." The Treaty of London, in the month after, 

 settled the forms. " Holland and the Netherlands shall be one United 

 State. The Allies and the Sovereign covenant that The Union shall 

 be complete, governed in conformity with the fundamental laws of 

 Holland. That religious liberty, and the equal right of all citizens to 

 fill the employments of the State shall be maintained. That the Belgian 

 provinces shall be fairly represented in the States General, and the Sessions 

 of the States held, in time of peace, alternately in Belgium and Holland. 

 That the commercial privileges shall be common to the citizens at large. 

 That the Dutch colonies shall be considered as equally belonging to 

 Belgium. And finally, that the public debt of both countries, shall be 

 borne in common." 



The Prince of Orange, under the title of Governor- General of the 

 Netherlands, arrived at Brussels in August 1814; and, in February 

 1815, a commission of twenty-seven members was formed to give effect 

 to the union. The commission resulted, as was intended, in declaring 

 that a king was necessary for the Netherlands, and that William the 

 First was to be that king. Sources of disunion, not to be dried up by 

 royal commissions, continued to shed the waters of bitterness on the 

 two countries. Holland, Protestant, of small territory, and strictly 

 commercial, was alarmed by the immediate connection with a country 

 rigidly Roman Catholic, of preponderant territory, and wholly agricul- 

 tural and manufacturing. 



Belgium was still more startled. The higher classes, attached to 

 Austria, as a popish state, as the distributor of honours and emoluments, 

 and as favouring the exclusive possession of place by the well-born, felt 

 all their aristocratic interests in danger. The manufacturers saw ruin 

 in their exclusion from the marts of France. The populace liked the 





