438 The Netherlands. [OCT. 



French gaiety, the French brandies, the French pay spent among them, 

 and the sound of the French glory, when the conscription was over. The 

 whole nation, more rationally, trembled at the Dutch debt. Popular 

 discontents arose, which would have speedily baffled the wisdom of 

 King William, and the skill of the British ambassador, Lord Clancarty, 

 the best of sheep-feeders and of men, but the heaviest of all diploma- 

 tists, living or dead : but the lowering of the atmosphere was cleared 

 by a storm. Napoleon came in thunder over the land. War suffers no 

 intermixture of petty politicians or petty grievances. Its eloquence is 

 the cannon ; and men can think but little of prospective wrongs when they 

 may be shot within the hour. Grape and ball, the cuirassier and the 

 lancer, cured the Belgians of their political fever; and the day of 

 Waterloo was the first true date of the union. No time was now to be 

 given for the new generation of grievances. A commission settled all 

 questions within one month the shortest period, perhaps, in which a 

 government commission, whose salary depended on the length of its 

 labours, ever settled anything. But the military example had not been 

 lost even upon Dutch gravity and Belgian pride. The constitution was 

 settled at the pas dc charge. On the 21st of September, the king was 

 inaugurated at Brussels in the presence of the States-General ; and the 

 Netherlands, from north to south, were in one roar of exultation. 



Time has thrown up its usual harvest of thistles again. The Bel- 

 gians complain that they cannot learn Dutch ; and the Dutch call the 

 Flemish a jargon unworthy of their own polished commonwealth. The 

 Belgians long for glory, ribbons of the Legion of Honour, and pensions 

 from any court under heaven. The Dutch call them idlers and aristo- 

 crats. The Belgians call the Dutch shopkeepers curers of herrings, 

 and dwellers in a soil which is neither earth, water, nor mud. To prove 

 themselves in earnest, they have burst out into insurrection; turned 

 out chief justices, tenacious of place under half a century of governments, 

 and whom nothing but a general insurrection could have induced to 

 loose their hold ; burned police-boxes ; and arrayed themselves as 

 liberators of their country. The Dutch have put on their uniforms, taken 

 up their muskets, and petitioned only for leave to march, and make a 

 national impression on the Belgic understanding. But the disturbance was 

 trifling and local, and seems to have sunk down. The Brussels patriots 

 are already tired of carrying muskets, and keeping guard in the dews 

 of autumn and the fogs of Brabant. The first frost will send them by 

 whole battalions to their homes ; and their patriotism will be, like their 

 provisions, hung up in the sight of their stoves, to keep till spring. 



Their whole insurrection was gratuitous, and therefore contemptible 

 a paltry imitation of the French one, which was necessary, justifiable, 

 and therefore triumphant. The conduct of the Prince of Orange is the 

 only thing which can now keep this impudent piece of coxcombry 

 alive. When the deputies from Brussels dared to come into his pre- 

 sence with their rabble cockade, he ought to have ordered them to be 

 treated as rebels and very impudent rebels they were ! The cockade 

 was the badge of insurrection ; and his answer should have been an 

 arrest. But blood at least has been spared; and it depends on the 

 wholesome activity of the king to shew whether he is placed at the 

 head of Belgium to have his beard plucked by every mob-leader, or is 

 worthy to sit upon the throne. 



