The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-01-01 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, JANUARY 1, 1833.

WITH the opening of the new year commences an im-
portant era in the history of our country. An experi-
ment upon a vast scale has been tried. The framework of
our venerable constitution has been essentially changed.
The result of the experiment, in all its searehing conse-
quences, is yet to be ascertained. The Church and all
our civil institutions,—the integrity of the empire, do-
xnestic and colonial,—in short, the most momentous sub-
jects which ever engaged human deliberation, are to be
submitted to a Parliament, chosen by an excited and, in
many cases, an unreflecting and infatuated constituency.
That extensive changes, whether for good or evil, are in-
evitable, we foresee, and not without apprehension:

" The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before us,
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it."
Our hope and confidence is in the overruling power of a
gracious Providence, which has long extended its Al-
mighty aid to this favoured land. When we behold vio-
lence and infidelity prevail, we rest in firmest hope that it
will be but for a season ; that "HE maketh the wrath of
man to praise him ;—the remainder of wrath doth he re-

strain."
With feelings and sentiments suited to the sacred fes-
tival which the Christian world have so recently celebrat-
ed, we wish our friends (and our enemies, if we have any)
a happy new year. We wish it, in the-best and most ex-
tended sense. May they be happy in themselves, happy
in their families, and happy in their public avocations.
The same wish do we express, from the depths of our
hearts, for our beloved country. May she long continue
to hold her high station among the nations of the world;
and, in order that she may do so, let her counsellors never
forget, that it is righteousness which exalteth a nation,
_and that szn is a reproach of any people.

"Alba fuit ;"—Antwerp, as we announced in our last
Publication, has fallen, and with it has perished the righte-
ous cause of a nation's freedom struggling for its exist
encq. What the immediate reason for General Chasse's
surrendering may have been, whether despair of success
or the influence of humane feeling, matters now but lit-
tle. The noble resistance already offered to such an
overwhelming force, had sufficiently established, on the
part of Holland, her deep-rooted sense of the justice of
her cause, and her determination to defend it with all her
wonted bravery. _

"And by whom," asks the remote foreigner," who has
heard " British Freedom" and " French Liberty" so
.loudly vaunted in contradistinction to the thraldom of
other European nations,—" by whom has the inglorious
deed been perpetrated ? What despots have thus stained
their hands in the blood of an unoffending people, strug-
gling for its country's rights ; surely no other than the
Northern Autocrat, aided, perhaps,by his unholy brethren
of the Alliance?" What will be the amazement of this
foreigner,—how will his dreams of European liberty be
dissipated,—when he is told that England has united with
France to do certain political evil, that problematical po-
litical good may come out of it:—in other words, to dis-
member the Dutch territory, professedly on behalf of a
people attached by interest to its late, and unattached by
affection to its new sovereign,—in order that the assumed
occasion for a general war may not arise in the single-
handed contest that would otherwise ensue between the
two legitimate combatants, Holland and Belgium !
It Were idle to recur to the oft-established proof of the
injustice that has guided the councils of the united cabi-
nets, and that has thus paved the way to the now virtual,
and hereafter actual aggrandisement of France. It is
not for us to be the keeper of her national honour ;—let
her look to it herself. But how bitter are our reflections,
how humbled is our national pride, when we recollect
the part that England has borne in attempting to crush
the spirit of an Old and faithful ally 1 Reader, are you a
proud man ?and if so, have you ever experienced that
bitterest'of pangs, the consciousness of subjugation, in a
just cause, to the overpowering force of an unjust adver-
sary ? If you have, appeal to your own breast, and ask
yourself, what must be the present state of feeling in
Holland, when, united as one man in defending the so-
vereignty over her own rivers, and the possession of her
own fortresses, she has, at length, bowed her unbroken
spirit to the summons of brute force ?
The moral to be learnt from this sad event may, in-
deed, prove useful to others, who will thus profit by our
disgrace. They will learn afresh, that the national ho-
nour should be entrusted only to those who are capable
of watching over it jealously, and defending it success-
fully. On the other hand, we have to lament the effect
too likely to be produced upon the civilized world by the
example that has thus been offered of the tyrannical use
of physical force ; and we have to lament, too, the feel-
ing, that has been engendered, and that now pervades the
great mass of our fellow-countrymen—that of national
degradation, and hostility to the Cause in which we have
borne arms. True, we have not been foremost in the
fight; our blood, thank God, has not been mingled with
that of "The French;" but morally, politically, actually,
our responsibility is. the same. •We have shared the
deed,---iwe must share the disgrace I" Much. do we fear
that we= must now become, as relates to this question,

" A fixed figure for the hand of scorn,
To point his slow unmoving finger at."

. •
Yet, one consolation is left us, and it is, that when our
banner shall once more be unfurled.in an English cause,
the name of " Antwerp" will not there be found to daunt
the heart of him that bears it, nor will it share a place in
the veteran's cap ,with those of " Peninsula" and ."
Wa-
terloo,"

MR. STANLEY'S SPEECH.—It is as important to the
cause of truth that this document should
.be well under-
stood, as it is to the cause of the Mercury that it should
be ill undeistood. Its Editor has been at his work: we
must be at ours.

He laments that he hid. the week before, commented,
unhappily, on a speech which 'had not read, in any
thing like 'a trustworthy form. It is rather singular, that