TOPICS OF THE DAY.
ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE—THE RISING IN BELGIUM.
DEAR SPECTATOR, Pays Bas, 1st September 1830.
Tins country has long been a complainant, and the working classes have taken occasion to imitate the Parisians in almost every principal town of Belgium. In Brussels the struggle was serious, the aggressions of the mob were violent : houses were burnt, public offices attacked, and in the resistance naturally made by the troops and others, many lives lost. At length the more wealthy and orderly of the citizens, stepping in between the mili- tary and the people, have patched up a truce, and have themselves engaged to preserve order till the r•eturn of a deputation which has been sent to the King at the Hague. The example has been fol- lowed by other towns, more particularly Liege. At Bruges, where great violence has occurred, no political measure has ensued: the discontented are immensely numerous, but they are not of a riotous description : they would permit any mischief to be done before their eyes, and not prevent it ; but they have not sufficient sympathy or communication between each other to get up any very for- midable appearance. Nevertheless, the occurrences of Bruges as well as Brussels must have their weight in moving the purposes of his Majesty of the Belgic Lion, who is supposed to be as obstinate an individual as any crowned head of them all.
The kingdom of the Netherlands consists of two countries, which conceive that their interests are inconsistent, and one of which, namely Holland, has certainly been selected as the mo- del kingdom and superior power. Its language, its debts, and its usages, have been imposed upon Belgium, greatly to the dis- gust of the latter country ; which looks with an eye of favour on France, and almost of horror on the land of the Dutch. In England, we are ignorant that there are other people besides ourselves groaning under a weight of taxation, at least as great in proportion as that which oppresses us ; and the Belgians have the vexation of knowing that this taxation is not to repay a benefit past, present, or to come, but simply to meet the difficulties of another country lately conjoined with them. In Belgium every thing is taxed : bread, meat, servants, (even female servants about twelve shillings a-year each,) windows, gardens, fireplaces, houses, spirits, (to more than the first cost in the case of gin,) ground, dogs, and in short everything that the eye or heart of man can fix upon, has a duty laid upon it, and that not trifling. By way of example, about 2/. 10s. is paid on every head of cattle exposed in the butchery of Bruges : this is a municipal tax ; forthe fact is, that if an article is not reached by a Government imposition, a municipal tax lays immediate hold of it. Asia the case of the mouture=a tax which has made so great a sensation (it is one onflour begdes the bread tax)—when the mouture was abolished by the States, it was retained in Brussels as a municipal tax, and is only this moment done away with in consequence of the late com- motion. Similarly at Bruges, where disorder and excitement have reigned for several days, the tax upon meat has been suspended. Why? If it could ever have been dispensed with, it ought never to have been exacted: but because the mob have destroyed the best house in the town, have torn up pictures of great value, have broken a mirror almost unique in the country, and have scat- tered an excellent library over a bonfire in the street, therefore a severe tax is to be taken off! It is the same thing in Brussels. Because for a long time the Minister VAN MAANEN has been ex- ecrated by all who understand the interests of this country, he was maintained as the apple of the King's eye. Now, because his hotel is burnt at Brussels, and about threescore lives are lost, he will in all probability be sent about his business, and a new systein of things proceeded upon. If not, say the best-informed persons of the country, WILLIAM FREDERICK will not a year hence remain King of the Pays Bas. It would seem as though the grand art of governing were to ascertain up to what point the people Will suffer : if a government oppress only within a degree of the point of non-tolerance, it is a strong, powerful, and efficient kingdom ; if it go a second beyond, the people turn, and the burden is pushed off the shoulders and kicked into the sea.
" Imitons les Francais" is the cry in this country ; and if they succeed in liberalizing their government, it will be indeed strictly an imitation of the French; but certainly the manner of the thing is different. At the time of the explosion, it happened that I was in Bruges, and I can therefore tell how a revolution is car- ried on in the Pays Bas. On Saturday night, the 28th of August, the town was thrown into alarm by the sudden escape of eighteen prisoners from the town-gaol and through the front gate. They had contrived to seize the keys and overcome the gaoler : they had not much difficulty in knocking out of the way the military guard which keeps its station before the gates ; for it would seem, by some understanding, persons were waiting outside, who supplied them with different kinds of weapons. The excitement caused by this event was an occasion and excuse for the assemblage of a great number of persons on the " place " in the centre of the town: they had also assembled the previous evening, and perhaps something had been then tumultuously arranged: be that as it May, on the proposition of some one or of some party, the mob betook themselves to the hotel of M. SANDELIN, a Deputy, who had not answered the expectations of the people. There they pro- ceeded to various acts of violence : they broke the windows, forced open the door, ransacked the interior, and at length set fire to it. The first battalion of the regiment stationed in the town had taken their departure that morning for Menin, in order to carry into execution some absurd idea of defending the frontiers against the bodies of French said to be assembling there in corps d'armee —as if the French had not enough to do at home—as if their most anxious policy were not to avoid offending their neighbours. The absence of troops, however, favoured the machinations of' the mob : some of the remaining soldiers, about two hundred men in all, kept the peace of other parts of the town as well as they could ; and some were ordered to the scene of riot. They were joined by a body of citizens, hastily formed en garde bourgeoise; and together they attempted to disperse the mob. In vain. The citizens then took upon themselves to fire upon the multitude, and several fell: some also were run through with the bayonet. A sort of hollow tranquillity was established : the effervescence seemed to subside, the mob held off, and the garde bourgeoise marched away. But with the dawn the work of destruction again commenced ; the flames were relighted, and a set of rioters took complete possession of the hotel. M. SA/swim-sr is a wealthy in- dividual, and a man of great taste—his house was celebrated for the richness of its furniture, and the rarity of its pictures and curiosities : by ten o'clock not a vestige of refinement or luxury remained within its walls ; the cellar, too, had been sacked, and the thirsty revolutionists had got drunk. To do them justice, wine was the only article they appropriated : money, jewels, valuables of all kinds, were ruthlessly thrown into the bonfire made before the house ; and in imitation of the Parisians, as we suppose, if any were seen to lay hold of property for their own use, they were instantly brought to reason by the readiest force a man possesses —a blow of the fist. For all this time, it would seem that the rioters disdained the use of arms : in the whole of the commotion of Bruges, not even a stick has been seen in the hands of an indi- vidual not aimed by the authorities. The wine of M. SANDELIN'S cellars gave new vigour to the destructive agents at work on his hotel, and converted it into a sort of Pandemonium : men all covered with soot and smoke and dust, were seen dancing and gesticulating at the windows in the midst of the flames ; and each appearance of these gentry mopping and mowing to the people, excited new applause in the crowds below. Several of these un- happy persons fell a sacrifice to their enthusiasm or their drunken- ness: one person fell out of the bow-window into the bonfire ; another was fatally injured by the fall of a beam ;_ some are said (I know not exactly with what truth) to have died a death of half roasting and drowning in the cellars floating with wine. Several I saw retreating with mutilated hands, and one with a broken arm, reeling and snivelling. During the time that these scenes were passing, some detach inents of soldiers and a garde bourgeoise were traversing the town in different directions. When they arrived at the quarter in flames and riot, they halted, gazed a short time, and then faced about. Police-officers, gens d'arms, and others, were standing idly about, as if all authority was at an end. The house burned till it burned out; its destroyers and the mob then dispersed. Not so the alarm of the citizens, more particularly those in • authority, and i they who had been active n firing upon the mob the prwious night. Obnoxious individuals fled, and the burgomaster dis- mantled his house down to his cellar. Citizen patrols traversed the town in every direction ; and the military, who had never been in bed, sate up in the streets one night more. The soldiers were, however, few, and the other bourgeois anything but warlike : so that, if the mob did not rise a second time, it was probably more owing to M. SANDELIN'S wine than to any fear. When the second (Sunday) night was got over, the town some- what recovered from its panic : the citizen guards became more nu- merous, some more troops came in, and by dint of watching one more night in the streets, quiet and order were restored. There are said to be eighteen thousand individuals in Bruges who know not where to get enough to provide for the day. They have no political views beyond plenty of food, and cheap : yet their cries in answer to every discharge of musketry were " Vive Na- poleon! Vivent les Francais !" Some indeed do say " Vive de Potter !" These were probably the ringleaders, who got too drunk to go to revolutionary work the next night. This was a curious and an unintelligible spectacle to me for some time. But I put the following question to myself, and I i think I supposed pretty accurately the state of things n the Pays Bas. With the whole of a peaceable population indisposed to a government, and a body of military thinking with them, what will be the consequence of an accidental mob proceeding to violence under the name of opinions, which it is true they do not under- stand ? A little disorder will be looked upon with favour; a good deal will be permitted and pardoned ; but when men get afraid for their own hearths, these riots will be put down. So it is with Bruges, Brussels, and Belgium. The influential persons are glad to have to go to the King with such a tale. I have never seen any thing more impressive than a patrol of fifty or sixty priests, en habits bourgeois, at the dead of night. It is more funereal than a funeral itself. The tramp, tramp, is as regular as that of soldiers, and more solemn. Ever yours,
O'HIGGINs.
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