470 The King's Speech— [Nov. 



lation less by 50,000 persons, than that portion of Luxemburg, which 

 is relinquished by the treaty. The King of Holland holds the remaini''- 

 der of Luxemburg, and, as grand duke of that province, is still to be 

 a member of the (Germanic confederation. Maestricht remains wholly 

 Dutch. Antwerp is, of course, to be given up to the Belgians, as soon 

 as the treaty is ratified, and the latter, on their part, will surrender 

 Venloo. The debt is not divided equally by this treaty ; the interest 

 of the whole amount to about 27,000,000 of guilders, of which Belgium' 

 is to pay only between 8,000,000 and 9,000,000, being rather less than 

 one-third. The plenipotentiaries of Belgium and Holland^ left London 

 to obtain the ratification of the treaty. 



The singularity of this treaty is, that it discontents both parties. 

 The Dutch, proud of their fragment of victory, declare that 

 they will allow no five powers, nor fifty, to cut up their territories. 

 The Belgians, heroes, every man of them, though a little unlucky 

 in their late display of chivalry, are equally indignant at parting 

 with a square-yard of morass, or the breadth of a Flemish ditch; 

 proclaim themselves the most injured people on earth, and threaten the 

 world with war. 



In the midst of this tumult of rival courage, our unfortunate pen- 

 sioner. Prince Leopold, says nothing, and does nothing, but walks about, 

 as the journals tell us, looking tAventy years older than he' was six 

 months ago, and doubtless, casting many a longing glance towards the 

 quiet sinecure which he enjoyed among us, for the last fifteen years ; 

 the perpetual dejeunes of Windsor and St. James's, the dinners, the 

 dances, and the innumerable easy delights, attending on the colonelcy 

 of a regiment of horse, recognized but on the day of receiving his pay ; 

 the cheap residence of a national palace, for which he paid neither 

 rent, tithe, nor taxes, and the punctual receipt of the annual sum of 

 £50,000, of which he perhaps spent the fiftieth part in the country that 

 fed him. 



; Those are the truths that his Belgian majesty has left to record his 

 memory in the British mind ; and if the nation still condescends to feel 

 any interest in the quarrel between the two crapauds, or care a straw 

 whether tlie Dutchman hunts the Fleming into his own morasses, or 

 the Fleming swamps the Dutchman ; whether Flanders exults in the 

 grasp of half a dozen acres from her heavy neighbour, or that neigh- 

 bour deems its national existence to depend on plundering Flanders of 

 fifty pounds a-year ; England desires only, that however the matter 

 may turn out, she may get rid of her pensioner — a pensioner who 

 hung upon her till she was long tired of him ; who signalized his pre- 

 sence here by nothing but a petty economy ; who patronized neither her 

 arts nor her public institutions ; dragged on a lazy and obscure life for 

 half the life of man ; gathering money, — and at last finished his career 

 by a poor compromise with the future ; securing his pension as a pillow 

 for his head under an emergency, which this very provision would be 

 the first thing to hasten. 



The Belgian settlement concludes with an extraordinary declaration, 



that if either party refuse, the arrangement shall be carried into effect 



''by force of arms. This is a curious contrivance for peace-making. It 



"'taay, for the moment, produce acquiescence, but it is impossible that it 



should produce agreement. France has her vulture eye fixed upon the 



whole transaction, and she is, possibly, at this hour making the way 



