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THE POLITICIAN, NO. IX.

THE WAR THE CONDUCT OF OUR GOVERNMENT DURING THE CONFERENCE-THE CONDUCT OF HOLLAND-THE REASONS FOR OUR EXPEDITION TO ANTWERP-OUR POSITION NOW THAT ANTWERP IS TAKEN.

No slight change has passed over the spirit of our times since Swift, by the witty fabrication of Prior's journey to Paris, thought it necessary to prepare the public mind for that terrible calamity-A PEACE.

John Bull was then, indeed, what the author of Gulliver describes him- —a hot-headed, bullying kind of fellow, with both hands in the pockets which he was always ready to empty to sustain his honour, as he called it, and support his quarrel, which was (generally speaking) somebody else's quarrel, into which he poked his impertinent nose, swaggering and swearing with all the purse-proud, plethoric impudence of a gentleman better fed than taught that he would break the peace if he liked it, for he had plenty of money to pay for the mending of it." Who, in the name of Providence, would trace any identity between the rubicund, jolly, and fisticuffing ghost of England's ancient peculiarities, and her present thin, and spare, and careful-looking Genius, who turns up and locks up his eyes, his bureau at the very mention of "war," which he vows to God it is quite impossible that he can pay for? What is it to him, says he, if the Poles are massacred, or the Germans enslaved? Poor creature! he has no pity for any other calamities than his own, and how should he? Has he not borne the world's misfortunes on his shoulders-has he not bled for other people, and paid for other people long enough-getting more kicks than halfpence-meeting with nought but ingratitude and injustice; and what can be expected from him now?-are not his lands full deeply mortgaged-has he not been borrowing, and giving bonds and bills, which some people call his own post obits, deeming they can never be paid but by his death? Then, is not his whole household out of order-has he not got an extravagant, good-for-little chaplain, who is always teasing and squeezing at his farmers' leather purses?-and has he not got a banker, who insists upon keeping all his money concerns secret from him-so that he never knows how much ready cash he has, and is always exposed to the risk of having his drafts dishonoured?--and has he not had a set of stewards, an infamous corrupt set of stewards, who declared they had a right to manage his estate, and expend his revenue, without any leave, or permission, or authority from him, saying that he had no business with their appointment, for that they had appointed themselves for the last two hundred years at least, and that, therefore, they had a clear and decided, and not to be disputed vested interest in the receiving and paying away of his property? Ay; certes, poor John has gone though a great deal-and what is even worse-he has got through a great deal-so that there is little marvel that he is nervous, and querulous, and fidgety, and mightily given to economy and calculation-Lord bless us The Roman lads, who learnt to divide a farthing into a hundred pieces, were nothing to him. It is no marvel all this, and more the pity; but the difficulty we have always to guard against, when our ruin has been commenced by

one extreme of conduct, is, that it be not completed by another. It follows not as a matter of course, because an extravagant readiness for war is pernicious, that security lies in an avaricious appetite for peace. We have idly-madly interfered with foreign affairs in past times; thisforms no reason for totally neglecting them now.

They who have an exaggerated fear of things proceeding to extremities deprive themselves of one of the most powerful means by which such a calamity is averted, viz.-the fears of their enemies. They who adopt the determination never to take up arms, except when the very Palladium of the state is in danger, contend under every disadvantage, and must be altogether ruined by defeat. If anything could justify our Government's culpable indifference to Poland-its tame defence of Germany and the kind of underhand, pettifogging evasion of the laws which has distinguished its policy in respect to Portugal-it is the raven croak that burst forth at the sight of the shadow in the shape of war; the Tory lamentation, when the arms of France and England were seen united together. "War, war, war," resounded on every side; for a moment nobody stopped to look and consider what this bugbear really was. One miracle succeeded another. The city of London protested its poverty; Lord Verulam displayed his eloquence. It was a strange thing, it was an awful thing, it was a wicked thing, it was a whiggish thing-nay, there was even radicalism about it, for our fleet was sailing in company with that of the tri-coloured flag and we were about to assist those rebellious rascals, the Belgians, against the excellent, conciliatory King of the Dutch. The enthusiastic admirers of the economical, peace-loving Mr. Pitt were astounded at the warlike waste that was about to be made of men and money. Poor souls! they could not bear to see Europe desolated by a war similar to that they had so utterly discountenanced! It was a crying shame to think of Old England being again called upon to fight the battles of the Continent. The cry was disgusting as coming from them, though the fact was startling in itself; and not the less so, for the long train of protocols by which this sudden explosion of energy was prepared. We viewed this event, neither quite prepared to approve a proceeding which seemed too violent in its execution, because not complete in its result; nor yet altogether willing to pronounce it unjustified by circumstances, and sure to be a failure. As far as Antwerp is concerned, the impregnable citadel is now taken, and General Chassé-the paragon of Dutch chivalry-has surrendered without a wound! But the capture of the citadel of Antwerp, in bringing us one step nearer to the end-makes us cast our eyes more attentively back to the origin of the war. And, in considering what is to be our next measure, we revert once more to the plots and policy of the Conference.

The poor Conference!-it died blunderingly as it had lived; and a sorry creation it was! Duplicity here-uncertainty there-a variety of parties having different views, all professedly united and anxious for the same objects: disagreeing when apart-meeting for the purpose of agreement, and compromising the wishes of each in order to procure the consent of all, was it likely-was it possible that any. thing like a fixed and determinate course of policy should be pursued by a body so weak, so irresolute, so divided? No; what was likely to be the case was the case: a perpetual change in language, and a

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decided rupture in action whenever the parties were called upon to fulfil the promises or threats which they had made with different intentions. Our own Government, we fear, is liable to one charge, and that a weighty one, throughout the whole of these transactions: never to have determined exactly what it was desirous to do. True, we had an object before us at least so it was said-peace; but is it possible to trace anything like the workings out of a determined plan in the course which we pursued in order to obtain that peace? Now we allowed the Prince of Orange to declare that we were favourable to claims which the Belgian nation had publicly denounced. Now we interfered to prevent the success of his arms to which the Belgian nation seemed quietly to submit. At one time, we apparently made up our minds to force upon Belgium the conditions to which Holland had agreed. At another time we persevered in our resolution to force upon Holland the terms to which Belgium had been made to assent. We do not say that circumstances did not, in somewise, account for this conduct. We admit that there wanted the fixed resolution of a master-mind to control circumstances. If we, as the parties most interested,-had decided originally upon any one course, and insisted, without stirring one step from our opinion, upon that course being adopted, neither France on the one side, nor Prussia on the other, nor the King of Holland, nor the Government of Belgium,—the first obstinate, the latter insolent,-would, or could have resisted the fiat we pronounced to them. But we have accommodated ourselves to this difficulty, and accommodated ourselves to that difficulty; and in endeavouring to pursue a path in which no obstacles were to be found, have gone at every step farther into a labyrinth in which obstacles surround us on every side. Our two main faults were, favouring the election of Prince Leopold, and changing (after once adopting them) the Eighteen into the Twenty-four Articles. In respect to the first, there is no folly so great in politics as to seem to gain an advantage where no advantage is really obtained. Why did not we think of this before we set the statesmanlike Lord Ponsonby on intriguing to procure" our Great Pensioned" the throne of Belgium? In fixing upon the Sovereign of that country the title of prefêt of England, we forced upon him the necessity of becoming the servant of France. We nominally connected ourselves more closely with the cause of Belgium, by the very act which, in reality, tended to separate us from that cause. We placed ourselves, and we placed Leopold himself, in a false position, of which we have already experienced some of the disadvantages, but not yet got through half the difficulties.

As for the change from the Eighteen to the Twenty-four Articles, it was wrong because it was a change; a change not sufficient to do much benefit to Belgium, if Belgium had before been seriously aggrieved, and yet sufficient to give Holland a kind of pretext for not acceding to it. Besides, though the difference between the Eighteen and the Twenty-four Articles is slight, the difference in consideration and moral power-that which should be the great power of all arbitrators-between those who abide by what they have once declared irrevocable, and those who swerve in the slightest degree from what they had pronounced immutable,-the difference between stability and instability, certitude and incertitude, in persons placed in the situation of the Conference, is beyond all calculation. The word "irrevocable," once abandoned, was from that

moment impotent and ridiculous; and, as it always happens, an act of violence became necessary in order to maintain a feeble character.

But let us observe, that in neither of these cases which affix a reproach upon our conduct, is there to be found much excuse for that of the Dutch. The King of the Netherlands could hardly complain of our abandonment of his son, since he himself actually refused to consent to his nomination : while the Twenty-four Articles which he refused are so nearly similar to the Eighteen which he accepted, that the Belgian Government obtained the credit for conceding to, and the Cabinet of the Hague showed an inconsistency in resisting, them. The reader remembers the oldfashioned weather-glass, in which there were two little figures who alternately appeared and vanished, from the construction of the machine they could not appear together. Such a machine has been the Conference; and such dignified little puppets have been the two puissant sovereigns of Holland and Belgium. One was sure to be all concession and complaisance, when the other was supposed resolved not to concede; then, again, as this advanced a little, that receded. It would seem as if the pigmy creatures felt proud of obtaining attention, and were resolved not to sink by good sense into insignificance. More especially that excellent King William-a waiter upon Providence-an expectant of some lucky chance-throughout the whole of this interminable affair, has been peculiar for the grace with which he has changed from civility to severity, when his neighbours have by chance shown a disposition to be reasonable. Thus it was curious enough to see the sudden start of the Dutch Cabinet, when, after the note of the 30th of June, it had seemed to invite a negotiation which it knew the then existing administration in Belgium would decline. It was singular enough to see the sudden start of the Dutch Cabinet-the change from the polite desire to do everything which was agreeable, to the stern resolution to insist upon the immediate execution of its precise wishes, when, by a change in the Belgian Government, those difficulties in the way of an arrangement were smoothed away which King William had so cordially expected to encounter. Poor Monsieur Van Zuylen!-all those pretty professions of good will and a desire to oblige, which had been so propitiously lisped forth, were to be at once abandoned for the haughty tones of dignified remonstrance and defiance. M. de Talleyrand smiled, -Lord Palmerston twitched his whiskers,-and this marvellous mystification was denounced in a new protocol; which, in a paraphrase of astonishment, declared that, just at the moment when it was least to be expected, a manifesto had been launched against the confiding Conference. But the confiding Conference avenged itself in protocol 70;— only think, reader, of the miraculous industry by which seventy protocols have been achieved! Protocol 70 (which though, after the genius of such productions, tolerably lengthy, may be recited in a few words) contains the proposition of France and England; first, that Belgium should be free, from the 31st of January, 1832, of the arrearages of the debt; secondly, that if the Belgian territory be not evacuated by the 15th of October, Holland should be inflicted with a weekly penalty of a million of florins levied on the arrearages due from the 31st of January, 1832, and afterwards on the capital of the debt. The plenipotentiaries of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, consented to the first proposition, but declared they had no instructions (the ordinary diplomatic language)

in respect to the second-although, if France and England should unite in any measures of force, to such measures they-the ministers of these states-were authorized to declare that their Government would not consent. A gentle proposition too was at this time made to refer the ultimate decision of the course to be adopted to the court of Berlin. This courteous proposition was refused by France and England, and the measures which have since been carried into execution determined upon and announced.

No one can doubt that decided measures of some sort were become necessary, or that the seventy protocols were to be doomed to ridicule everlasting. Whether the measures adopted were the best, or whether measures of that kind need have been necessary, is another question, which involves not only the conduct of this administration, but of that which had preceded it. But the result of a decided step in affairs ought to be their decision; and the fault which we find with that now made is, that with the Citadel of Antwerp already taken, the subject in dispute is as far from being advanced as before Marshal Gerard crossed the frontier. The inept conduct of the Belgian chamber, which vindicated its character for insolent insignificance to the last, is another circumstance, which, in involving a great principle, that of interference, tends much to the embarrassment of affairs. But whatever may be our speculations as to the future in referring to the past-we should only be looking at half the question if we looked at the expedition against Antwerp as a matter by itself. It resulted not only from the state of Belgium, but from the state of France; and it did not happen to be simply a question with us, as to whether we should have recourse to hostile proceedings in conjunction with France, but whether we should do that or allow France to enter Belgium without our concurrence! The only condition on which the Duke de Broglie would accept the government was, that of the entry of the French troops into Belgium. We were called upon to assent to, or to oppose this entry. It was insisted upon by no military conqueror, by no warlike genius -but by al minister of peaceful habits-by a man anxious for peace. The long state of suspense and uncertainty in which France, by the agitation of this Belgian question, had been maintained, made it a matter of urgent necessity to a new administration to commence with something like an appearance of decision.

The administration of the Duke de Broglie was the best, if not the only guarantee for repose in France; and with repose in France must be more or less connected the tranquillity of this country. That we were favourable to such an administration, and anxious, if possible, to secure its accession and stability, was one of the causes, no doubt, of the policy our Government pursued, and a course which we are not willing to find fault with. Indeed, it is no marvellous or difficult thing to find fault; and though there is a mystery and an awe in those red boxes, and those long and gloomy passages, and those at once smart and solemn clerks of the foreign-office which rather impose upon the uninitiated; yet there springs up a courage with criticism which enables us to say, though our present minister is able and clever-cleverer and abler than most of his predecessors-yet that the shades of Downingstreet are not always classic, and that our foreign affairs have not been conducted with that high and master-hand which wielded the destinies of England in the days of a Cromwell and a Chatham. But if we compare

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