kingdom, burst into rebellion, marked by scenes of conflagration and plunder, of which the description to this assembly would be too afflicting for my heart, for the national feeling, and for humanity." The patriots of Brussels took high offence at the term "rebellion" having been applied to the transactions of which Brussels had been the scene. They seemed to have forgotten that they themselves had taken arms to put down the mob with which the disturbances first began, and that they were in arms, at that very moment, for the purpose of preventing the king's authority from being obeyed in his capital city-had put themselves in a posture of defence against the king's troops, acting under the king's orders-and had chosen for themselves a new ensign in opposition to the king's colours. An assembly was called, consisting of four deputies from each of the sections of the civic guard, which voted that the king's speech had produced "a painful sensation, and an effervescence of popular feeling," and resolved that an address should be sent to their Representatives at the Hague, to instruct them how to prove, that every step which had been taken to overthrow the king's authority, deserved his sincere and most grateful acknowledgments. But the important feature of this address was a new demand which its framers now put forth, viz. that the king's troops should be entirely withdrawn from the Belgian territory. "The king's proclamation," said they to their deputies, your absence, the speech delivered by his Majesty in the States General, hold up a gloomy prospect to us. Troops every where occupy our fortresses, or surround our towns, in an attitude which

indicates war, and seem disposed to yield to violence rather than to right. While, submitting to every thing required by strict legality, you employ the arms of reason to support our cause, the battalions become more numerous round us. The speech from the throne even invites you to keep them permanently on foot. Are we then enemies to an amicable arrangement? Are we rebellious subjects, whom it is necessary to bend without mercy beneath the yoke? Such a system of military constraint must draw upon us, gentlemen, the most dreadful calamities. While you will be following, step by step, the formalities required by the Fundamental Law, for the solution of the great question which you are to decide in the sequel, united with deputies convoked in double the usual number, our commerce and our manufactories languish in painful suspense. Considerable cities, alarmed by the vicinity of numerous troops, the projects of which they are ignorant of, are in a continual state of alarm, and will see the distress and the despair of the working classes gradually increase. When your presence about the throne ensures to it perfect security, will you suffer your fellow-citizens, who, like you, are friends to the rights of the country, whom you yourselves have encouraged to defend these rights, to be exposed to warlike measures, which are as unreasonable as useless >" Even this was thought not to speak out with sufficient distinctness what was truly wanted by the insurgents, and a second address was voted by another assembly, composed of inhabitants, partly of Brussels, and partly of the neighbouring towns, which, in express words, directed their depu

ties to require, that the Dutch troops stationed in the Belgian provinces should be immediately withdrawn, and, if this was not granted, to return home. The horror of such men at being called rebels, was no less ludicrous than the barefaced impudence of such a request. The persons who carried these addresses to the Hague, were advised by their colleagues to return whence they had come, before their errand should become publicly known.

Brussels itself, in the mean time, was daily running the risk of popular commotion. The lower orders saw no reason for allowing to their betters a monopoly of armed rebellion; they could not see why they should have been shot and bayonetted by the Burgher guards, for demanding the repeal of a tax which made bread dear, merely to allow the Burgher guard, without any better authority, to demand alterations which less immediately affected their comforts. Crowds of unemployed artisans were ready for mischief; for periods of popular tumult are always periods of idleness, and their numbers had been increased by the burning of manufactories, and the destroying of machinery. The capital, moreover, had not merely its own mob to fear within its walls were now assembled the flower of the mobs of Liege, Namur, and various other towns, who had hastened, in arms, too, to the principal scene of the drama. Great disturbances at last broke out, on the 19th of September. The mob assembled in large masses, shouting the cry which had been taught them of “Vive la Liberté." The Committee of Public Safety assembled, to take measures for calming or repressing their fury: but it was too VOL. LXXII.

:

The rab

late. The mob hastened to the town-hall; they demanded arms from the committee; they were furnished with about forty stand, with instructions, to show that they wished liberty, not plunder; and they were promised more next morning. With what arms they had procured, these rioters marched out to attack the posts of the royal forces at Vilvorde, and Teruerenan act of open aggression, altogether unprovoked-but they returned to the city without executing their design. Next morning (Sept. 20), the Committee of Public Safety, instead of dealing out arms, published a proclamation, disapproving of these expeditions, and no less injurious to the vanity of the mob, than the king's speech had been to their own. ble instantly raised the cry, that they were betrayed; they attacked, overpowered, and disarmed, several bodies of the Burgher guards upon their posts. This was followed by a general assault on the town-hall, where they found a large quantity of arms. They again prepared to march against the royal troops, and again the design was abandoned, for they could find no person of sufficient respectability to be acknowledged as a leader, mad enough to assume the conduct of so wild an undertaking. They remained masters, however, of the city. The Committee of Public Safety, which they had compelled to yield to their demands, was dissolved; and the skulking spirit of rebellion at length came forward openly in the shape of a provisional government.

Prince Frederick, who commanded the forces, was at Antwerp. On learning the new disturbances, and the success of the insurgent-rabble in throwing off [S]

the restraint of the civic guard, who had bound themselves to maintain order in the city, he resolved to march to Brussels with the troops. On the 21st, he issued a proclamation to the inhabitants, announcing his intention, and that he came to put an end to the scenes of disorder which were ruining the city, while the proper authorities were engaged in deliberation on the demands which had been put forward. He therefore ordered, that the posts occupied by the Burgher guards should be given up to the troops, their distinctive colours laid aside, and all armed strangers from the neighbouring towns sent out of the city. The municipal administration, the Committee of Safety, the council and officers of the Burgher guards, were enjoined to see to the execution of these orders; and these bodies were informed, that they would be held personally responsible for all resistance which the troops might encounter.

These bodies, however, no longer possessed the power of determining whether the troops should be welcomed or resisted. The more respectable inhabitants would willingly have received the royal army, as the means of putting an end to the miserable state of danger and confusion in which the capital was now involved. But the lower orders entertained no such wishes: so soon as it was known that the military were approaching, they prepared to defend the town, and by threats and violence they compelled the more backward part of the population to join in their labours. They followed the tactics of Paris. Barricades were formed at the gates, and in the streets leading to them. The pavement was torn up; the stones carried to

the tops of the houses lining the streets, along which the troops would have to advance. In all these preparations, the rabble volunteers from the neighbouring towns, and particularly a band of 300 or 400 armed men from Liege, were the most active participators.

The prince's van-guard reached the neighbourhood of the city on the 22nd, but the attack was deferred till next morning. The respectable citizens kept quietly within their houses. Some of the lowest class, and a band of the Liege men, made a sally upon an advanced picquet, but were immediately driven back, bringing with them ten or twelve of their number wounded. On the morning of the 23rd, the troops advanced, in six separate divisions, against six of the gates of the city-those of Flanders, Auderlecht, Lacken, Schaerbeck, Namur, and Louvain. The artillery soon cleared away the gates, and the barricades constructed immediately behind them; but so soon as the military advanced into the streets, they were opposed at every step by new obstacles. The division, which entered by the Flanders' gate, advanced with great steadiness a considerable way, till stopped by a strong barricade. Exposed to a deadly fire from behind this rampart, and overwhelmed from above with showers of paving stones, heavy pieces of furniture, hatchets, and every species of missile, it was compelled to retreat, after sustaining a very severe loss. At the Auderlecht gate, they were not more successful, but, secing the sort of warfare in which they were to be involved, they refrained from advancing. The division, too, which entered by the Lacken gate, was compelled to re

tire from the streets. One of the keenest conflicts was inside of the Schaerbeck gate. The mode of fighting was the same with that adopted on the other points; but the troops made good their passage to the Park, where they took up a position, without attempting to overcome the obstacles that stood in the way of their penetrating farther into the city. The divisions which entered by the gates of Namur and Louvain, likewise succeeded in establishing themselves within the walls, and thus the higher part of the city was in the possession of the troops, who now occupied a position which gave their artillery the command of the capital. The contest lasted till five in the afternoon, when the populace ceased the firing which they had kept up against the Park.

During the night, there was circulated through Brussels a forged proclamation, in the name of prince Frederick, in which he was made to promise his troops two hours unrestrained and licentious plunder of the city, if they effectually made themselves masters of it on the following day. This falsehood was readily believed by people taught to dislike the Dutch name: it not only exasperated the populace to fresh exertions, but the insult and the "danger which it threatened roused the more respectable citizens, and drove them into the ranks of their fellow-townsmen. The contest on the following day was, therefore, equally obstinate as on the preceding, but with little practical result. On the one hand, the populace failed in all their attacks on the troops, and on the other the troops were unable to advance be yond the positions which they had occupied on the preceding day.

Some houses were set on fire. Neither did the following day, the 25th, produce any decisive result, except that the troops made themselves masters of the street of Louvain, and were guilty of acts of rapine, which the citizens subsequently magnified into lying tales of unexampled atrocity. In the mean time, powerful reinforcements were flocking into Brussels from all the neighbouring towns; the combats were renewed, with some bloodshed on both sides, and little real effect on either, on the 26th and 27th; when at last, whether acting under superior orders, or from a conviction that to carry and retain the city would be a hopeless attempt, the troops retreated, and returned to their former quarters in the neighbourhood of Vilvorde. The loss on the side of the inhabitants during these conflicts, was stated to amount to 165 killed, and 311 wounded, of whom 130 killed, and 240 wounded, belonged to Brussels.

The question was now decided: there was open war. The Belgians considered themselves victorious; the flame of the armed insurrection spread rapidly through the country. No decision by the States General would any longer be regarded, and it now became a very doubtful question, whether Belgium, in the new attitude which she had assumed, would continue to acknowledge even the sovereignty of the House of Orange. While these events had been going on, the States General at the Hague had been deliberating on the questions submitted to them in the royal message, and the occurrences of war no doubt hastened their determinations. After a debate of several days' duration, the Second Chamber decided, on the 28th of

September, by a majority of 50 to 44, that experience had shewn the necessity of making alterations in the Fundamental Law. The second question, relative to the separation of the two parts of the kingdom, was likewise decided in the affirmative, by a majority of 55 to 43. The message, with this answer, was immediately transmitted to the first Chamber of the States, who, on the 30th, adopted both votes of the other House, by a majority of 31 votes against 7. Neither the Dutch people nor the Dutch members seemed to set a very high value on the continuance of the legislative union with Belgium, and the most effective speeches against the proposed measure came from Belgian deputies.

But the only good effect of this determination, now that the question had been already decided, amid blood and rapine, consisted in its leaving the king at liberty to take those active measures for framing and recognizing a separate administration, which he could not legally have adopted, whatever might be his opinions or his wishes, with out legislative sanction. To secure the continuance of the exccutive government in his family, was now the great object to be at tained; for the leaders of Brussels no longer concealed their intention of choosing a new dynasty to reign over them, if they admitted the hereditary principle at all into their new government. The liberal journals, in examining the various quarters to which they might look for a prince, had already declared, "The family of Orange was, a few days ago, that from which, with a free choice, we could have best selected a prince. At present, we know not of any person bold enough to think

He

of it, much less to propose it formally. There are crimes, as well as benefits, of which the weight is attributed entirely to the royal house. The hereditary prince of Orange, like the duke de Bordeaux, must endure a penalty, from which, in the actual condition of opinion amongst our population, no human power can save him. The House of Orange has ceased to reign in Belgium: that point was decided in the days of September. The prince of Orange cannot impugn that decision, either on the pretended principle of legitimacy, or of his right to the succession. violated the pledge which he gave us, and by a system of tactics,' which history will condemn, his brother was sent to exterminate us, whilst he reserved to himself, by his silence, the means of reappearing among us in case of defeat." This was a miserable attempt to palliate a gross breach of faith. When the prince quitted Brussels for the Hague, on the 3rd of September, carrying with him the ultimate demands of its population, and consented to withdraw the garrison which still remained in the city, it was only on their giving him their solemn pledge that the dynasty would be preserved, and the public peace of the capital maintained. The last pledge they confessedly had forfeited; the peace of the capital had gone to wreck and ruin in their hands. An armed rabble had overpowered the Burgher guard-had placed those very authorities under compulsion-had assumed the

control of the city had marched to attack the royal troops, without the nominal government being able to do more than disapprove in a proclamation, for which