Star.
London, England, 1830-12-03 00:00:00

FRIDAY EVENING, DEC. 3, 1830.

DR. BOWRING TO WILLENS DR CLERQ-11.4GUE.

London, Dee. I, HMO.

Letters full of regrets and reproaches arc showered on me from every
part of Holland. In answering yours, I will answer all r and will
you have the generous courage to obtain for it an insertion in the news.
papers that have misrepresented or misunderstood me. I 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 for their individual virtues, and their national
literature, the homage which le so justly their due? You menace me,
and others menace me with the loss of friendship that is dear,of
esteem that I highly prize—of intercourse that I have been always
proud of. You ask, if 1 shall find truer friends elsewhere, or brighter
memories ? I never put the question to myself ; and if I had, the an-
swer would have been, No! But what then? Duty—the whole of
duty is self.sacrifice. I never inquired what you would say in the mo.
meet 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.
Yon have been dreaming of lost dominion—you ought to have been
thinking of recovered pvuaperity. Know that the separation of Bel.
glum is the best blessing which the present century has conferred upon
Holland.

And do me the justice to own, that I have never altered my tone li
never changed my language in this matter. In a thousand conversa-
tions on every appropriate occasion—in articles in the newspapers and
review►—in correspondence and in books, 1 have always preached
from one text on this subject, and always developed one commentary—
that the union of Batavia and Belgium was fraudulent and foolish—a
blind sacrifice of the interests of both—that time, far from producing
sympathy, was daily sowing stronger and stronger antipathy, that a
rupture, either by consent or by violence, was inevitable, and that such
a rupture would bring with it many advantages to both. Have I not
told you again and again, that three or four millions of malcontents
added nothing to your strength, or your security ? That while under
the plea of serving the Belgians, you were restricting your commerce—
taxing your citizens—ruining yourselves by colossal colonial expenses
—you were, in fact, undermining your resources, and preparing for
yourselves a gloomy futurity.
I never blamed you for not giving to the Belgians their full and fair
share of the offices and emoluments of the state. You pleaded that
you could not trust them ; that answer was your justification—but it is
tkeir's also. The simple, the all-important fact is this, that a union
was impossible. Language, literature, religion, manners, historical
recollections, political associations, every thing proclaimed its imprac-
ticability. It was a most unhappy wedlock and necessity (would it
had been the Nam controversy of friends, and not the bitter 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 blood.
shed—to establish those relations of peace and good neighbourhood—of
friendly, social, and commercial Interest—which will add far more
than political amalgamation can do, or has ever done to the well-being
of each; in a word, to bring about a benevolent rivalry, unchecked
I by those discords and discussions, which were the natural consequence
of the false position into which you were thrown.
I plead guilty to the charge of having given the Belgians mq best
counsels in the critical situation in which they were planed; th y ho-
noured me (though they well knew my intimate relations with Holland)
with their confidence, and I have not been insensible of the houour. A
great part of my life has been passed you know among different na-
tions, and I have never yet limited my affections to any one.
I have never excluded any one, but have sought to in.
crease the sum of human happiness wherever and when.
ever 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,
Ilona suss ame sail homonym Wiesen pato. The field of virtuous
exertion is everywhere, where misery can be diminished or happiness
I can be increased. You call me "a meddler," "an intruder; these
are epithets which may or may not imply dishonour. The man who
meddles in the service of man is engaged in the highest,noblest functions
of humanity. You menace us with war; that sort of "meddisse Is
over, the well-being of nations can no longer be committed to the guar-
dianship of mercenary troops or foreign tyrants. Invoke not, nay, an.
ticipate not this dread calamity ! Its results eoukf not be dangerous to
liberty, and if Holland were so unwise as to demand war in her own
seeming, but selfish interest, she would be the inevitable victim, and it
would be to us—to us—who have always asserted the independence of
nations and their right to self government, that she would have to look
for relief and for redemption.
It is true, as you remind me, that I have received many literary ha
noun from your countrymen, but you never made them valueless by re-
quiring the sacrifice of honest opinion as the price of such distinctions.
To no such contract could I have been a party; I never gave you reason
to believe that I should think or act differently from what has been my
course during the late events. You threaten England with the sepses-
Lion from Ireland as the punishment of her Indifference, to which I have
only to say. that from the moment in which it can be proved that such
a separation would be beneficial, I shall become its advocate. The
text which I apply to your country I will apply to mine. The well-
being of nations is the sole end of social regulation ; I desire
the downfall of every thing which is opposed to it there—and every.
where.

Von say, farewell for ever ! my heart cannot echo back the parting
sound. Exasperation will pass away, and we shall yet shake hands in
cordial and confiding feeling.

Eva your",
JO If N.,BOWAING.

The Greeks have no measure of a mile ; their ideas ;sa-
e/min* it art derived by tradition from the Romans ; and in process of
time they seem to have shortened even the. Roman mile. In the course
of conversation with the Bishop of Maui, when I stated that Britain
is seven or eight huntired ((heek) miles long ; then it must be as large
(he said) as the Motes; which is about one-fourth as long. When I
told Wm it was an island. he cried; ' Lord have mercy upon me.' He
bad taken his' ides of islands from those of the lagesn.—Col. Leak?,
Morro.

The little interest excited by the Regency Question,
and the probable succession a a female to the British throne, forma a
striking contrast !with the doings of our' forefathera 'under similar cir-
cumstances. In the reign of Queen Mary, the subject of female me.
narehical rights was discussed with great virulence by the controversial.,
ists of the day ; and the reformed preachers did not Imitate to assert
that the government oft woman was prohibited by the word of lion.,
Is the. Old Testament, the passage in *Wilt had been oidered to take
the Kin,r front the midst of die," br..l,hrem" etteloded, fines roottlidrd, '
an. ft:males, : snd the doctrine of the New Testament dna' the man is the,
head of the woman, was, it Was' argued; 'equally athilltislVe &pinta
tie prosoMon, by .finseles, of the summit eashority over *ten.
!John Knox, who was One of the antil.fenanine fiction, was unwearied
In his opposition, and in his o• Finn Dialed ihii Tthinitei sgalhst the
monstrous Regimens of Nyomen,r be deelortil thatthe-rult of a woman
pas repugnant to nature—a asniuMay to G0D...-ii Wag most counts.,
ItiA
rims, po his revealed • will and approved ordi siDa alially,'' 'AVM..
tiot of all equity
.autt jsilice.
,Knox titres .sw, spew. blasts pas
wont sweeping ; but thi success' Or Itifsit li, the friend of the,
nimmatien, produced a very sudden reeantatielrea the part Oita
fitsemen i the ' Trumpet' mead Ktor4,
that 'her whale We Imo
i mbaele„ proving that she had been chosen by GOD, and that the
elks, unlawful for other women, was lawful fur her.

PRICE 7D.