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dation of their prosperity was laid in extensive foreign commerce; and in order to render their unproductive country the receptacle and mart of commodities from all parts of the world, the greatest facilities were given to importation, while domestic products were no further regarded than as they supplied the immediate wants of a trading and maritime population. The Belgian provinces, on the other hand, had long attained to great wealth and distinction by their manufactures, which they exported largely to all the neighbouring countries; and when the mercantile superiority of Holland had reduced to insignificance the foreign traffic of the Flemings, they still exercised to advantage their industry and ingenuity in the fabrics of their looms, and other products of art. In process of time they encountered rivalry in these branches, which greatly reduced them in the scale of general wealth and population; yet manufactures were still subsisting in their principal towns, which, if encouraged, might find employment for a proportion of their remaining inhabitants. They were, however, unable to support a competition with British goods of a similar kind; and when the inundation from the warehouses of England began to overflow the continent, the shops and factories of the Low-countries were shut up or deserted. Loud complaints of the ruinous consequences echoed through the Belgic provinces, and produced various petitions for redress to the legislative body. The English name and character even suffered under the irritation ex

cited by severe losses: its commercial spirit was pronounced exclusive and insatiable; and at Ghent the popular indignation was vented in a public bonfire of British manufactures.

The government took these calamities and discontents under its serious consideration; and on September 3d, Mr. Wickers, director-general of convoys and licenses, presented to the second chamber of the states, on the part of the King, the plan of a law and tariff, by which the levying of duties on the import, export, and transit of all wares and merchandize in the kingdom, might in future be regulated on an equitable and uniform footing. After an introductory speech by the director, respecting trade in general, and the modes in which it may be favoured by the interference of government, the principles and grounds of the proposed law were laid before the assembly; and as the matter of this exposure appears to us, both on account of its reasonings, and the future commercial prospects it affords, well worthy the attention of our readers, we shall insert it at length.

On these principles it is proposed:

1st. That all the objects of great branches of commerce be very moderately charged, on import, export, and transit.

2. That very small duties be laid on the import of all raw materials used in our native manufactures.

3. That upon the import of all foreign manufactured goods which can come into competition with home fabrics, such high duties

should

should be levied as may be sufficient to favour the sale of our own productions; but so as that foreign commerce may be as little as possible obstructed.

4. That the export of all articles of internal industry should, as much as is practicable, be favoured and free.

Articles of foreign manufacture must in this way of course become dearer to the consumer. But it should be recollected, that a revenue will thus be raised, which must otherwise have been levied in some more oppressive mode; and that the destruction of our internal manufacturing establishments would, too probably, be the result of a free and unimpeded import of foreign goods. The foreign manufacturer would then be able to dictate his own prices, and render the domestic merchant and consumer wholly dependent upon him. Besides, would not the value of our domestic raw materials be in great part lost by the fall of our manufactures; or, if the foreign manufacturer purchased them of us, would it not be with a view to send them back to us in the wrought state; thus compelling us to pay the price of the manufacture?

In fine, what would be the result, after the fall of our internal fabrics, when wars arising should render our foreign supply of goods difficult or impossible?

In fact, if we take counsel from the experience of other nations on this head; if we look into the recent laws and tariffs of commercial and manufacturing nations in Europe, and even in America, we may thence derive

the lesson, that they, in order to favour internal industry, tax heavily foreign, and, therefore, our manufactures, on import, or in some cases prohibit them; that they in all possible ways favour the export of their own manufactures, in order to furnish the foreign consumer with them.

It thus, Gentlemen, requires no further proof that our internal manufactures, which have reached such a measure of perfection, cannot remain in that state, unless care be taken that foreign manufactures be charged with such a duty as may proportion their price to the consumer, to that of our own products,-a price which, in consequence of the burdens and taxes here bearing on the manufacturer and workman, cannot be diminished.

Our hatters, our glass-makers, our tanners, our flax, cotton, and wool-spinners and weavers, our manufacturers of arms and ironsmelters, with many others, must thus be supported by laws, and maintained in their present state. And this, the rather, because no choice remains for us to act on certain theoretic principles, but in conformity to the actual subsistence of so many valuable establishments, whose permanence can be exposed to no one moment of interruption, to not one day of discontinued protection, without endangering their fall, the discharge of industrious workmen, and establishing the triumph of our enterprising neighbours.

It is not, however, meant that the protection and favour afforded

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merce. To protect this, the proposed law permits the transit of all goods and merchandise free of import and export duties, with the payment alone of a moderate duty for such transit over our territory. With this view it is proposed, that in every town where any extensive commerce is carried on, an entrepôt should be established, where, for a very moderate duty, goods should be placed under the inspection and care of the administration of convoys and licenses."

The session of the States-general, held in turn at Brussels, opened on October 21st, with a speech from the throne. It touched upon various topics relative to the state of the country, one of which was a meditated exchange of small portions of territory on the Prussian frontier, with equivalent portions belonging to that power, for mutual convenience. The most interesting topic was that of the finances, concerning which his Majesty spoke in the following terms: "When the view of the receipts and the expenses of the public treasury shall be communicated to the Statesgeneral, your High Mightinesses will see, I hope, with satisfaction, the considerable reduction which, conformably to your wish and mine, has been effected in the charges of the general administration. In consequence, no augmentation of the existing means, no creation of extraordinary resources, will be necessary to cover them. At the same time, the regularity and the facility of the collection of the revenues in almost all the provinces, demonstrate the salutary influence

which the liberty of commerce, and of every species of industry, has already had on the situation of the inhabitants. But neither this circumstance, nor any of the facts from which it is permitted to presume the still increasing solidity of the public credit, will make me forget the necessity of further economy, and the duty imposed on me, not to require from my subjects any sacrifices, but such as are strictly indispensable to maintain the honour and safety of the state."

On rising, after the delivery of his speech, the King was saluted by the repeated acclamations of the whole assembly; and there is reason to suppose, that no sovereign in Europe has better succeeded in acquiring the general confidence of his people in the sincerity of his declarations of regarding their interests as exclusively his own.

A treaty was laid before the States concluded between the King of the Netherlands and the Prince Regent of Great Britain and Hanover, the purpose of which was to abolish the tax called the Droit d'Aubaine, and the imposts named Gabelle d'Heredité and Redevance d'Emigration, when an inheritance passes from the States of the King of the Netherlands to the dominions of Hanover, and reciprocally; which arrangement is extended, not only to the duties and imposts which come into the public treasury, but to those levied on account of provinces, towns, corporations, and other public bodies.

The defence of the Netherlands against any future attack from a powerful neighbour, could not

but

but be a momentous concern; and the king sanctioned the measures proposed by the war-department for completing the fortifications commenced on several points of the frontiers, in which labour from 10 to 12,000 workmen were to be employed during the winter season. At the same time a perfect coalescence between the northern and southern provinces of the kingdom was effected by the abolition of the whole line of customhouses between them.

The failure of the harvest, and consequent scarcity of the necessaries of life, prevalent in the Netherlands as in so many other parts of Europe, occasioned a clashing of interests in different portions of the kingdom, which was the cause of warm debate in the assembly of the states. Holland, which had been accustomed to derive its chief subsistence from foreign commerce, and had thereby become a great mart of corn as an article of free importation and exportation, was unwilling to acquiesce in those restrictions on the corn trade which some of the Belgic provinces, reduced to great necessity, represented as essential to preserve them from famine. After much consideration, his Majesty, on December 20th, proposed to the legislative body a law on the subject in the following terms:

"Having taken into consideration that the absolute prohibition of the exportation of corn must be considered in this king

dom as a measure liable to very great inconveniences, as it might have the effect of interrupting the ordinary course of the trade in corn, and suspend or lessen the importation:

That, however, a partial prohibition may be attended with salutary consequences for the inhabitants of some provinces, and particularly of those which, by their situation, and by the prohibitory laws of the neighbouring states, have not to expect any direct supply of foreign corn: For these reasons, by the advice of our Council of State, and in conjunction with the States-General, we have ordained, as we ordain by these presents:

"Art. 1. It is forbidden to export wheat, rye, barley, oats, or meal of any kind whatsoever, by the land frontier of the kingdom, to countries whence it is not permitted to export those articles to the Netherlands.

"Art. 2. We reserve it to ourself to extend the said prohibition to other articles of food, and to revoke it entirely, or in part, as circumstances shall require.

"Art. 3. The corn, and other articles of food, included in the above prohibition, or in that of the 20th of Nov. 1816, the exportation of which shall notwithstanding be attempted directly or indirectly, shall be confiscated, and the trespassers condemned, besides, to pay a fine of one thousand florins.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER XII.

Spain.-Weakness and Fluctuations of the Government.-Character of the King.-Change of Ministry.-Matrimonial Connections between the Courts of Spain and Portugal.-Conspiracy at Madrid.- Decree respecting Religious Orders.-Property of Jesuits restored.-Prisoners at Ceuta removed.-Royal Nuptials.-General Pardon, with great Exceptions-Portugal: its Commerce flourishing-Brazil declared a Kingdom.-Naples.-Treaty with the Piratical States.-Sicilian Papers excluded from Naples.-Transactions with the United States of America. Decree respecting the Political Relations between the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily.-Rome insuited by Pirates and Ba ditti.-Torture forbidden in the Inquisition.-Security declared to Purchasers of National Property.-Confiscation no longer permitted to the Profit of the Inquisition. Negociations of the Church of Rome with France.-Venice.

THE

HE beginning of the year afforded a melancholy view of the state of the kingdom of Spain, which seems to have been freed froin internal war and the shackles of foreign dominion, only to be re-delivered to that system of weak and arbitrary government, under which it has s long been declining in the scale of Europe. In the capital and the principal cities, the spirit of freedom was at this time so far subjugated, that the discontents which subsisted, were buried in secrecy : but in the northern and frontier provinces, parties of guerillas were roaming uncontrolled, many of then composed of the dispersed insurgents under Porlier, and of soldiers become deserters for want of pay. The public finances were in a wretched situation; and the measures of administration were perpetually changing. This fluctuation may in great part be ascribed VOL. LVIII.

to the personal character of the monarch, distinguished by restless activity, and impatience of all opposition to his will. It is said of him, that "He sees every thing, decides every thing, and watches over all the parts of the administration. Supreme master, his dispositions experience no delay; his wishes are instantly executed. This explains the rapidity of events at court." One of these, which excited much surprize at Madrid on the 21st of January, was a total change in the ministry The principal minister, Cevallos, was, however, announced in a Gazette extraordinary of the 26th, as restored to all his functions, his Majesty signing with his own hand the following declaration : "Considering as unfounded, the motives which induced me to order your discharge from the office of my first secretary of state, and of the [K] cabinet;

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