During all this period of quiet and well-ordered government, one event only demands notice the attempt of Charles VI to open out facilities of oversea commerce to his Belgian subjects. The closing of the Scheldt had ruined Antwerp, so Charles determined to make the utmost use possible of the inferior harbour of Ostend. In 1722 he granted a charter to certain enterprising merchants of Brabant and Flanders for the erection of a Company for trading in the East and West Indies, commonly known as the Ostend Chartered Company. This step at once aroused the strong opposition of the vested interests of Great Britain and Holland, and gave rise to a prolonged diplomatic controversy. The grounds of opposition were that (1) the deed of renunciation, by which Philip II in 1598 gave to the Infanta Isabel the sovereignty of the Netherlands, expressly forbade the Netherlanders to trade in the Indies; (2) Arts. V and VI of the Treaty of Münster excluded the Belgian provinces from this trade; (3) Art. XIX of the Treaty of Rastatt (virtually a repetition of Art. VII of the Treaty of Utrecht) declared the rights of possession of Charles VI to be the same as those possessed by the late King Charles II of Spain, a declaration repeated in Art. I of the Barrier Treaty of 1715; (4) Art. XXVI of this last-named treaty declared that, with regard to matters of trade, the inhabitants of the United Provinces and the Austrian Netherlands remained on the same footing as was settled by the Treaty of Münster.

These arguments, arrayed against the Emperor's project by the British and Dutch Governments, constitute an unbroken chain of evidence for the continuity of the history of the Belgian Netherlands during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as an autonomous State. In the end Charles VI, in his anxiety to obtain the support of Great Britain and the United Provinces to the Pragmatic Sanction regulating the succession to

his Austrian dominions, gave up the struggle, and the Ostend Company was suppressed.

His grandson, Joseph II, was distinguished among Austrian rulers for a restless reforming zeal not always tempered with discretion. In 1781, when visiting the Netherlands in person, he seized the opportunity of the outbreak of war between the United Provinces and Great Britain to secure the withdrawal of the Dutch garrisons from the Barrier Towns, whose fortifications, through long neglect, had become incapable of defence. His success in this matter led him to take in hand the more important question of the reopening of the Scheldt. Urged by numerous deputations, Joseph in 1783 sent an ultimatum to the States-General, demanding free passage on the Scheldt for his ships, on pain of a declaration of war. The Dutch, though in sore straits through the English war, at once refused, and seized two Belgian vessels-one from Ostend, the other from Antwerp-which attempted the passage. The Emperor immediately broke off relations with the States-General and threatened the Dutch with active hostilities. But the States-General appealed to the international sanction that had been given to the closing of the Scheldt by the Treaty of Münster, confirmed by many subsequent treaties; and Joseph, finding that he could not achieve his aim save at the risk of provoking a general war, had to content himself with some trifling advantages secured by the mediation of France in a treaty concluded at Fontainebleau (November 8, 1785). But the Scheldt remained closed.

Joseph's action in this matter was calculated to win him the goodwill of his Belgian subjects; it was otherwise with his policy of internal reform. Their provincial particularism was an offence to him. He wished to do away with local privileges and customs, and to introduce a uniform system of civil government. His efforts met

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with the fiercest opposition, especially in Brabant; and no less did his attempts at the reform of clerical abuses and his Edict of Toleration. A rebellion broke out. The insurgents defeated the Austrian forces, and in January 1790 the provinces declared their independence under the name of the Belgian United States'. A few weeks later Joseph II died. His brother Leopold offered to restore the ancient Constitution and to give a general amnesty, if the provinces would return to their allegiance. The offer was refused, and a strong Austrian army had to be sent. It met with little opposition, and the Emperor was able to restore his authority by carrying out his offer and confirming Brabant and the other provinces in the exercise of their former privileges, as enjoyed in the governorship of Charles of Lorraine.

Thus, in 1790, we find the Belgic Netherlands in possession of the same local privileges of provincial self-government as they had possessed two centuries earlier in the days of Albert and Isabel, and with their political status as the autonomous personal inheritance of a descendant of Mary of Burgundy unchanged.

(6) BELGIUM UNDER FRENCH RULE, 1795-1815

It was not to be for long. In 1792 the French revolutionary armies swept over the country. On October 1, 1795, the whole of the Austrian Netherlands was, by a decree of the French Government, incorporated in the Republic and divided into nine departments. The duchy of Luxemburg formed the department Des Forêts' and parts of those of Ourthe and of Sambre-et-Meuse. By the Treaty of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797) the fait accompli was ratified by the Emperor Francis. For twenty years the Belgian provinces remained an integral part of France. French was the language of government administration, and the Code Napoléon

became the law of the land. All the ancient rights, privileges, and customs were abolished.

The case of Luxemburg could not be better summed up than in the words of a writer in the Kölnische Zeitung of the date April 25, 1867, at the time when the question of the neutrality of the Grand Duchy was settled at the Conference of London.

The Treaty of Utrecht did not stipulate anywhere in any special manner for Luxemburg. This province passed to the House of Austria, not as being a German principality, but as an integral part of the Spanish Netherlands. When Charles VI called together in 1725 the States-General to Brussels, to submit the Pragmatic Sanction to them, he proclaimed afresh the inseparable union of all the provinces of the Austrian Netherlands. During the eighty years of the rule of the Habsburgs the Netherlands, including Luxemburg, had with the Court of Vienna nothing but a dynastic bond.

(7) UNION OF HOLLAND AND BELGIUM, 1815–30

The union between Holland and Belgium in 1815 did not come about through any drawing together of the peoples of the northern and southern Netherlands in 1814-15, but through outside pressure. Both countries had been for some years incorporated in the French Empire; and French rule had, in Holland and Belgium alike, effected sweeping and permanent changes. The cumbrous and complicated constitution of the Old Republic of the United Provinces had, after making government almost unworkable for two centuries, finally disappeared. The ancient provincial rights and privileges, which Brabanters and Flemings had so long and so obstinately upheld against their Spanish and Austrian rulers and in defence of which they had risen in revolt as recently as 1788, were likewise things of the past. The ground had thus been cleared both in Holland and Belgium, when at last, with the downfall of Napoleon, the French yoke was removed.

The news of the result of the battle of Leipzig led to the uprising of the people of Holland and the formation of a provisional government. The Prince of Orange was recalled, landed at Scheveningen, November 30, 1813, and accepted the offer of the sovereignty with the title of William I, Sovereign Prince of the United Netherlands. He did not take this step without the knowledge of the Powers. The nephew of Frederick William II of Prussia and brother-in-law of Frederick William III, he had passed much of his period of exile at Berlin. Early in 1813 he had, with the knowledge and approval of Frederick William and of Alexander of Russia, betaken himself to England to see on what conditions he could secure the support of the British Government for his return to Holland. He arrived at an understanding with Lord Castlereagh, April 27, by which England agreed to the Prince becoming sovereign of Holland with an extension of the frontiers of the ancient republic, but not to the return of all the Dutch colonies then in British hands. Thus early were the basic principles agreed upon, which were to be in the following year embodied in the Treaty of Paris.

This first step was followed, at the end of October 1813, by a 'Memorandum concernant Hollande adressé aux Monarques alliés contre la France par le cabinet de St. James'.1 In this document the passage occurs

En 1792 une des grandes puissances de l'Allemagne servait de barrière à la Hollande contre la France; si cet état de choses fût encore possible, l'Angleterre ne jugerait pas nécessaire de demander un accroissement de territoire en faveur dudit pays : mais en cas que la frontière de la France vint à toucher celle de la Hollande, par suite des arrangements à faire, l'Angleterre insisterait pour qu'Anvers soit donné à la Hollande avec telle autre extension de territoire, qui donnât aux Provinces-Unies une frontière militaire convenable.

1 See Van Dijk, Traités conclus par la Hollande depuis 1789, pp. 65-6.