The Sun.
London, England, 1830-12-07 00:00:00

HOLLAND AND BELGIUM.

DR. BOWRING TO WILLIAM DE CLERCQ,
AT THE HAGUE.

London, Dec. 1, 1830.
Letters full of regrets and reproaches are showered on
me from every part 'of Holland. In answering yours, I
will answer all ; and will you have the generous courage
to obtain for it an insertion in the newspapers that have
misrepresented, or misunderstood me ? 1 have some claim
on the candour—at all events on the just judgments of Hol-
landers. When they have been wronged, what pen has
been so prompt as mine in their defence? Has any One.
stranger living laboured as I have laboured to obtain far
their individual virtues and their national literature the
homage which is so justly their due ? You menace me,
and ober* menace me, with the loss of friendship that is
deur—of esteem that 1 highly prize—of intercourse that I
have been always proud of. You ask if I shall find truer
friends elsewhere, or more agreeable &collections. I never
put the question to myself, and if Lhad, the answer would
have been no! But What then? Duty—the whole of duty
is self sacrifice. I never inquired what you Would say in
the moment of excitement and despondency. I made up
my account with some quiet future hour, when you—even
you—will thank me for the part I have taken. The
mists are already beginning to pass away. You have'
been dreaming of lest elonsiniok—you ought to have been
thinking of recopere4 prosissrit,y,. Know that the tepee'.
lion of Belgium is the beet blessing which the present
' century has conferred upon I,lollend.
And do me the justice to own that I bare never
altered my tone—never changed my linguige, iu this
matter. In a thousand conversations on every ap-
propriate occasion, in articles in the newspapers and
reviews, in correspondence and in hooks, I have al-
ways preached from one text on this subject, and
always developed one commentary—that the union , of
Holland and Belgium was fraudulent and foolish—a blind
sacrifice of the interests' of both-;--that time, far from pro-
ducing sympathy, was 'daily sowing stronger and stronger
antipathy—that a rupture, either by consent or by
violence, was inevitable—and that such • ruiture,would
bring with it many advantages to both. Have I not told
you again and again, that three or four millions of mal-
contents added nothing to your strength or your security ?
That while, under the plea of serving the Belgians, you
were restricting your commerce, taxing your cif zens, ruin-
ing
yourselves by colossal colonial expenses, you were, in
fact, undermining your resources, and preparing for your-
selves a gloomy futuiity.
I never blamed you for not giving to the Belgians
their full and fair share of the offices and emolu-
ments of the State ; you pleaded that you could not
trust them. That was your justification—but it is
theirs also. The simple, the all important fact is
this, that a union was impossible ; language, litera-
ture, religion, manners, historical recollections, political
associatioat—every thing proclaimed its impracticebility.
It was a most unhappy wedlock—and necessity (would it
had hecu the calm controversy of friends, end not the bit-
ter animosity of foes !), necessity has forced a divorce.
What becomes the duty of the friends of both ? To teach
a speedy forgetfulness of the days of bloOdshed—to esta-
blish those relations of peace and good neighbourhood—of
friendly, social, and commercial interests—which will add
far more than political amalgamation can du, or has ever
done, to the well-being of each ; in a word, to bring
about a benerelent rivolry, unchecked by those diem&
and discussions which were the natural consequence of
the false ptisition into which you were thrown.
I plead guilty to the charge of having given the Bel-
gians my best counsels in the critical situation in which
they were placed ; they honoured me (though they well
knew my intimate relations with Holland) with their con-
fidence, and I have not been insensible of the honour. A
great pat of soy life has been passed, you know, among
different nations, and I have never yet limited my affec-
tions to any one—l have never excluded anyone—but hive
sought to increase the sum of human happiness wherever
and whenever I have been able. You know, for you are
well read in the pages of the past, where that generous
sentiment is to be found " Homo suns a ms' nihil hunsa-
nuns alienum puto." The field of virtuous exertion is
every where, where misery can be diminished or happi-
ness can, be increased. You call me " a meddler," "an
intruder." These are epithets which may or may not im-
ply dishonour. The man who meddles in the service of
men is engaged i the highest noblest functions of huma-
nity. You menace us with war. That sort of " meddling"
is over. The well-being of nations can no longer be com-
mitted to the guardianship of mercenary troops or foreign
tyrants. Invoke not-,-,uay anticipate not this dread calamity !
Its results could net be dangerous to liberty—and if Hol-
land were so unwise as to demand war in her own seem-
ing hut selfish interest, the would, be the inevitable victim
--and it would .he to tio.-..t0 us-=-who have always as-
s rtetl the independence of nations, and their right to self-
gove rrunents that she would have to look fur relief and, fur
redemption.
It is true, as you remind me, that I have received many
literary honours from your countrymen, but you never
made them valueless by. requiring the sacrifice of• honest
opinion as the price of alto+ distinctions. To no such con-
tract could I. have been a party. I never gave you reason
to believe that I should think or act differently from what
luoi been my course during the late events- You threaten
England with the separation from Ireland as the punish-
ment to her indifference, to which I have only to aay, that
from the moment in which it can be proved that such a
separation would be beneficial I shall become its advocate.
The test which I apply to your country I will apply to
mine. The well-being of nations is the sole end of civil
regulation. I desire the downfal of every thing which is
opposCd to it liere,and every where.
'You say farewell for ever ! lily heart cannot echo back
the. parting sound. Exasperation will pass away, and
we
shall yet sheke ham's in curdial and confiding feeling.
JOlO, nownwo.

HOUSE OF LORDS, Dec. 6.
NEGRO SLAVERY.
Petitions were presented against neon slavery by the
Earl of Eldon, Irons Stirling and other places ; by the
Bishop of Lincoln, from a place in Surrey ; by Lord
Holland, from the females of Christchurch, Hams ; by Lord
Gower, from Wentworth, Matlock, and several other
places ; and by the Bishop of Llandaff, from a parish in
Cumberland.
Lord KING presented a petition from Wm. Cobbett,
praying for reduction of the taxes on the necessaries
of life, the Excise Duties, the Assessed Taxes, and Tithes.
The petition stated that prior to the Reformation, paupers
were maintained by the church, but that after that event
they were thrown upon the land.
The Marquis of CLANRICARDE presented a peti..
tion from a place in Galway, praying for a Repeal
of the Union. The Noble Marquis did not concur in the
prayer of the petition.
The Nosiest Mamants also presented several petitions
from different parts of Ireland, complaining of the mode in
which the grants to the Kildare-street Society were pre-
sented.
Lord GOWER presented a petition from the Stafford-
e!lire Potteries, against the truck system.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL.
On the motion of the Earl of Gaosveuox the Report
of the Committee on this Bill was received, and ordered
to be read a, tbirdaime on Friday next.
REGENCY BILL.
Lord Lvunntoure moved the third reading of this Bill.
The LORD CHANCELLOR role, not with the in-
tention of offering any opposition to this Bill ; . its
whole arrangements were such as to meet the. wishes
of all parties. Every thing which the exigencies of
the case required had been brought folly under consi-
deration. But as this Bill would most likely
form a precedent for after.times, he thought it necessary
that it should go clown to future generations, stamped
with, if • possible, every degree of authority. , It was,
therefore of the greatest motnent, that whatever doubt or
difficulty might have been thrown upon the measure itself,
or the principle of it, either in that House or elsewhere.
should he removed. Now be had been informed that
with reference to the contingency contemplated and pro.
vided fur in the Bill on their Lordships' table, and which
had been noticed in their Lordships' House, it had been
not there, but in another place, said, that if the Monarch
of this country should die, leaving hie Consort enceinte,
allegiance would be due to the infant in vents** sa ',wet
For this doctrine he did not believe there was the least
foundation ; and be had heard it propounded with great
surprise, that in this particular there was any departure
from'the general rule of the common law. It had been
said that there was no precedent in the history of the
country precisely to govern the case; and that, so far
as he was informed, and so far as the greater learn
ing of his Noble and Learned Friend (Lord Lynd-
hurst) enabled him to pronounce, was the fact
but nevertheless there was an instance, to which
his attention bad been directed by the kindness of
a Learned Friend of his, which, although not occur-
ring in the direct succession of the Kings of England,
bore such an important and intimate connection with the
Crown of England, and had occurred under such circum-
*Loxes, that it .ought not to be withdrawn from atten-
tion. . The ease he alluded to had occurred in, the reign
of'llenry the Second. That Monarch bad a son Geoffry,
who was Duke •of Brittany, which Henry was Duke of
Normandy es well as King of England, and in the filet
character entitled to the homage of Brittany ; Geoffry died,
leaving a widow.. (Constance), and a daughter Ellinor.
On the death( of Gsoffry, Ellinor was proclaimed heiress
to the DUchy, and two claims were put in to the ward-
ship, during her Minority ; one by Phillip. Augustus of
France, the other by Henry of England; Phillip Augus-
tus claiming to be the guardian, as Lord Paramount,—
Henry as the immediate feudal superior of the Infant ; but
althoughbothparties disputed the wardship, neither made
any question of Ellinor's title to the Duchy. At the death
of Geoffry, however, Constance, his widow, was enceinte,
and while the Kings of •France and England were contesting
the wardship of Mow, a son was born. Previous to the
birth of the son it was on all bands agreed, that the child,
in ventre • so mere, could not defeat the right of the living
issue, Ellinor, who was Duchess, notwithstanding the fact
of her mother's pregnancy. The claim of Ellinor was,
however, defeasible, and the born child took the crown by'
devolution. The child, of which Constance was delivered,
Was no other. than Arthur, whose unhappy story was so
well known in the history, and, it might be added, its the
drama of the country: he had been immortalised by
Shakspeare. He became Duke the moment he was born,
and there was at once a defeasanee of the claim of Diner,
and an end to the dispute arising out of that claim between
King Henry and King Phillip Augustus. How the rights
of Arthur had been afterwards dealt with are not material
to the present inquiry. He as well as Ellinor were sup-
posed to have been spirited away by King John; Arthur
was believed to have been murdered by his uncle, and
Ellinor incarcerated in a fortress in Wales; and, eventu-
ally, Alice, a younger slaughter of Constance by another
husband, bad succeeded to the Duchy. This precedent
bore strongly on the case to which the Bill referred ; it
had met with the concurrence of the great feudaliata of
France and the lawyers of England, and he was happy to
find that the Bill was framed in conformity to the princi-
ples on which that precedent rested. He, therefore, en.
tirely approved of its adoption.
The Bill was then read a third time, and passed ; after
which the House adjourned.

lIOUSE OP COMMONS, Disc. 6.
Several new Members took the oaths and their seats.
GLASGOW AND BURGHS ELECTION.

Sir R. WILSON brought up the 'Report of the Coin.
mittee on the Glasgow and Burghs Election, which de-
dared that the sitting Member was duly elected, but that
the petition against his return was neither frivolous or
vexatious.