The Sun.
London, England, 1833-02-25 00:00:00

HOLLAND AND BELGIUM.

BRUSSELS, FEB 21.—We have received from our cor-
respondent in London the Note delivered to the Dutch
Cover ninent in the name of France and England :

NOTE,

ADDRESSED BY PRINCE TALLEYRAND AND LORD PALMER-

STON TO BARON VAN ZUY LEN VAN NYEVELT.
" London, Feb. 14, 1833.
" The undersigned have the honour to acknowledge the re.
ceipt of the Note which Baron Van Zuylen addressed to them
on the 3d instant; and they must, at the same time, express
their profound regret at having learned by this Note, and by
the personal communications which they have lately had with
Baron Van Zuylen, that the small extent of his powers, and the
nature of his instructions which he has received, deprive them
of almost every hope of concluding with the Dutch Government
either a final or a preliminary arrangement by which the dif-
ferences between Holland anti Belgium might be terminated.
" When the evacuation of the citadel of Antwerp rendered
it possible to resume the negotiations, the Governments of
France and Great Britain did not hesitate a moment in pro.
posing to the Dutch Government, by their charges d'Affaires at
the Hague, a convention, destined to establish between Holland
and Belgium a provisional situation, such that each of the two
countries, by reducing its army, might be able to diminish the
burdens by which they are both oppressed. This convention
referred to the negotiation to be commenced for the conclusion
of a definitive treaty—the solution of the few questions still in
dispute. But in removing the chances of collision between
Holland and Belgium, it facilitated a complete arrangement be-
tween the two countries.

. "The preliminary convention proposed on the 2d January
was founded upon the principle that the reciprocal exchange of
the territories should take place immediately between the two
parties, and it was proposed in consequence that the Dutch
should evacuate forts Lillo and Lief kenshoek, and the Belgians
Dutch Limburg and the German part of Luxemburg. The
necessary results of this reciprocal evacuation were to be an
amnesty granted to the inhabitants of the evacuated districts,
and for the Belgians the immediate enjoyment of the free use
of the commercial roads through Limburg, which has been
guaranteed to them by the five Powers as a condition of the
arrangement by which the right bank of the Meuse and the
entire sovereignty of Maestricht were secured to his Majesty
the King of the Netherlands, Grand Duke of Luxemburg.
" These arrangements being once made, a reduction of the
armies of the two countries to the peace establishment seemed
well calculated to prevent the renewal of hostilities, which the
five Powers have so often declared it to be their intention to
hinder by all possible means ; and it seemed reasonable to hope
that so decided a manifestation of pacific intentions on both
sides would tend to diminish the mutual irritation which the
threatening attitude of armies, stationed almost in sight of each
other, must inevitably produce, and that new facilities would
thus be found for settling the few questions still under discussion
" It is evident that the Belgians could not accept any pro-
visional arrangement which did not give them the immediate
enjoyment of the navigation of the Meuse, and secured to
them, till the conclusion of a definitive treaty, the continuance
of the navigation of the Scheldt as they have enjoyed it since
the month of January, 1831.
" In return for these conditions, the Governments of France
and Great Britain offered the immediate cessation of the em-
bargo laid on the Dutch ships, and the sending back of the
Dutch troops now detained in France.

" It was with extreme regret that the yndersigned learned,
by the despatch of Baron Verstolk, dated 9th January, and by
the counter-project annexed to it, that the above-mentioned
proposals had been rejected by the Dutch Government.
" Baron Verstolk has not, indeed, positively stated that the
proposals were rejected ; but it was to be inf. rred from the
counter-project which accompanied his despatch, that the
proposals were not accepted.
" This counter-project was inadmissible, for what it con-
tained; and gave ground for decisive objections for what it
did not contain.

" It required that the Dutch Government should be autho-
rized to levy a tonnage duty on the Scheldt, without enter.
ing into any of the obligations dependent on this right, such
as those which relate to the placing of the buoys and the
pilotage on the river, which must be inseparably connected
with the levying of the duty; and it also required that this
duty should be paid at Flushing or at Bath—a demand which
was subject to great objections, because it would lead to the
detention and delay of vessels navigating the Scheldt.

" It also demanded a transit duty vn the roads through
Limburg, though the five Powers have guaranteed to Bel-
gium the use of those roads for the advantage of commerce,
without any duty, except a duty for their repair.
" Lastly, it required that the Governments of France and
Great Britain should engage that Belgium should pay annu.
ally, till the conclusion of a definitive treaty with Holland, the
sum of 8,400,000 florins in half-yearly payments, for its share
of the interest of the common debt of the late kingdom of the
u nited Netherlands.

" But this considerable annual payment has been assigned to
Belgium by the treaty of Nov. 15, 1831, as a part of a general
and final arrangement, by which various commercial advan
tages were to be secured to it, and by which the King Grand
Duke was formerly to accede to the territorial demarcation, and
to recognise the Sovereign of Belgium,

" Itis, therefore, evidently impossible for Belgium to take
upon itself the payment of any part whatever of this annual
charge, till it is put in -possession of all the commercial advan-
tages which a definitive treaty is to secure to it, and before the
territorial limits and its Sovereign are formally recognised by
the King Grand Duke.
" But if the stipulation in question was inadmissible for the
reasons above mentioned, it wak no less so as indicating an in-
tention in the Dutch Government to defer to an indefinite pe-
riod the conclusion of a definitive treaty. For if that Govern.
ment had had the least inclination to come to a speedy agree-,
ment on the two or three points which still remained to be re-
gulated, why should a preliminary convention stipulate for an-
nual payments to be made during the negotiation of that treaty,
while even the first instalment would not be due till June or
July next ?
" Now it is not doubtful that a definitive treaty might be
signed long before that time, if the Dutch Government had a
real desire to terminate the negotiation. Such a proposal as it
has made, therefore, already indicates in that Government the
desire of securing, by a preliminary convention, advantages
which may enable it to hinder, or to delay to an indefinite pe-
riod, the conclusion of a definitive treaty.
" But while the Dutch counter-project contained that inad-

missible stipulation, it omitted the two Articles by which, on
the one hand, the embargo was to be removed, and on the

other, the Dutch and Belgian armies reduced before a certain
time to the peace establishment.

" The Dutch Government proposed that these two points

should be established by an exchange of notes, instead of be-
ing the subject of a formal stipulation; but the undersigned
have learned by the expressions employed in the note of
Baron Vertolk, that what he meant by this was, that the em-
bargo should be immediately taken off, and without waiting
for the ratification of a convention, and they have inferred,
from the verbal explanations of Baron de Zuylen, that the
Dutch Government wished to make the reduction of its army
to a peace establishment depend on a general disarming in,
Europe, instead of a simultaneous disarming in Belgium, as
France and England have proposed.
" The unqualified rejection of the proposals made by France
and Great Britain, and the nature of the counter.project which
the Dutch Government substituted for them, have caused the
undersigned to fear that they must renounce all hopes of sign.
ing a definitive treaty between the five Powers and Belgium.
" The undersigned were the more inclined to suppose that
Baron Von Zuylen would be prepared and authorized to open
. _ _

such a negotiation with them, as, on the 9th November last, he
had presented to Earl Grey the project of a definitive treaty,
though the conference to which alone Baron Van Zuylen was
accredited had been dissolved at that time by the retiring of
the Russian Plenipotentiaries.
" The undersigned alleged this proposal to Baron de Zuylen
in their two first interviews with him, but he has invariably
persisted in declaring that he had not at this moment, and that
he never had had at any period of the negotiation, the power
to treat or to sign, except with the Plenipotentiaries of the five
Powers united in the conference.

" The undersigned, not having succeeded in their efforts to
prepare the way for a definitive arrangement, have been,forced
to return to the plan of a. preliminary convention, for which
alone Baron Van Znylen announced that he had powers, and
presented to him the annexed project, No. 1, which, contain-
ing the articles proposed at the Hague on the 2d of May, com-
prehended also stipulations by which the neutrality of Belgium
was to be recognised by the Dutch Government, and a forma)
armistice agreed upon between the two parties—stipulations
which the undersigned thought it proper to insert, in order to
prevent all possibility of a renewal of hostilities.
" Baron Van Zuylen then declared, that he could not accept
this proposal.
" At the same time that the undersigned delivered to Baron
Van Zuylen the second project of a preliminary convention,
they communicated to him also the project, No. 2, of a plan,
by means of which, if he had been authorized to discuss with
them the questions that still remained to be regulated between
Holland and Belgium, the advantage of a definitive arrange-
ment might have been combined with the form of a prelimi-
nary convention; since there would have been inserted, ver-
batim, in a separate and additional sixth article, the articles of
a complete arrangement, such as might have been consented
to by the parties interested. By this means the conditions
of peace between Holland and Belgium would have been
finally established, though these conditions might not have
been immediately invested with the precise forms of a defini-
tive treaty.
" But Baron Van Zuylen again alleged his want of powers to
discuss or sign such a Convention.
"The Kreliminary Convention which the undersigned had
hitherto proposed, was founded on the reciprocal evacuation of
the territories by both parties.
" The undersigned then resolved to make another attempt at
an arrangement, by proposing a new Preliminary Convention,
on the principle of leaving both parties, till the conclusion of a
definitive
consequence,
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sofundersigned
p presented
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Baron they v
rae..n
spectively occupied at that moment.
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I
Zuylen the Project, No. a
By this plan Lillo and Lief kenshoek were to remain provi-
sionally in the hands of the Dutch, while Venloo, Dutch Lim-
burg, and German Luxemburg were to continue in the occupa-
tion of the Belgians; and as the reciprocal evacuation was de-
layed, the stipulations for the roads through Limburg, and for
an amnesty in the evacuated districts were reserved for the
Definitive Treaty.
" The establishment of a formal armistice between the two
parties, and the acknowledgment of the neutrality of Belgium