NEWS OF THE WEEK.

THE fate of Belgium is decided, as far as the opinions and resolutions of the people of Belgium, signified through the Provisional Government at Brussels, can be supposed capable of deciding it. On the evening of the 4th instant, it was determined that Belgium should be declared an independent state, and a constitution prepared and submitted to "a general Congress of the People;" and on the 5th, this resolution was proclaimed by the Provisional Government.. This decision on the part of the Belgians is a summary close to all discussion on the propriety or impropriety of their acceding to the overtures of the King; and it must also put an end to all question of foreign interference, it being, we believeoiniversally admitted, that the establishment of independence in Belgium does not conic under the description of cases contemplated in any treaty, just or unjust, that binds the Sovereigns of Europe to each other. The proclamation of the Provisional Government runs thus :

"INDEPENDENCE OF BELGIUM.

"The Provisional Government, considering that it is of importance to fix the future condition of Belgium, decrees " I. The provinces of Belgium violently detached from Holland, shall form one independent state.

"2. The Central Committee will, as soon as possible, draw up a plan of Constitution. _ "3. A general Congress, in which the interests of the provinces shall be represented, shall be -convoked. It will examine the proposed Belgic Constitution, will modify it where it is necessary, and will cause it to be .e_xecu ed in all Belgium, as the definitive Constitution.

"DE POTTER.

Cu. ROMER.

S. VANDERWETER.

COMA FELIX DE MERODE. "By order,

`f Brussels, Oct. 4, 1830. J. VANDERLINDEN, Secretary." While the people of Brussels are cutting the knot which had been -so -long the source of their uneasiness, the States-General and -the King has been in earnest deliberation on the best methods of unfziiig it. On the 29th, the Second Chamber had decided, by a majority-of 50 to 44, for the modification of the Loi Fondamentale, andsby a majority of 55 to 43 for the separation of the Northern and Southern provinces. These resolutions were carried by a ranch greater majority in the First Chamber; and on the 2d instant, the object for which the States had been called together being attained, they were prorogued. On the same day, a proclamation was issued .appointing a commission to carry into effect the resolutions of the Statis-General, ancljto meet at the Hague immediatelk with that view. On the 4th, the peaceable portions of the Southern provinces [which are they?] were placed by an ordinance under the special Government of the Prince of ORANGE, who was directed to take up his head-quarters at Antwerp.

On the Prince's arrival at Antwerp, he immdiately iued the following proclamation. It is dated the very same day on which the declaration of independence appeared at Brussels. Had it been made eight or ten days sooner, or had not the follies and grimes of the 24th, 25th, and 26th of September been perpetrated, in all human probability it would have been effectual.

"William, Prince of Orange, to the Inhabitants of the Southern Provinges of the Kingdom " Being charged provisionally by the King, our august father, with the Government of the Southern Provinces, we arrive again in the midst of you, with the hope of being able to contribute to the establishment of order and the happiness of the country.

" Our heart bleeds at the evils which you have suffered. May we, seconded by the efforts of all good citizens, prevent the calamities which may still threaten you.

" In quitting you, we conveyed to the feet of the Throne the wishes expressed by many of you for a separation between the two parts of the king. dom ; remaining, however, under the same sceptre. This wish has been granted.

" But before the mode and conditions of this great measure can be determined in the constitutional forms, attended with inevitable delays, already his Majesty grants provisionally to the Southern Provinces a distinct administration, composed entirely of Belgians, of which I am the chief. The affairs of this administration will be carried on with public bodies, and with individuals, in the language that they may choose. All places dependent upon this Government will be given to the inhabitants of the provinces which compose it. The greatest liberty will be left with respect to the instruction of youth ; and other ameliorations will be made in accordance with the wish of the nation and the wants of the times. Fellow countrymen, all that we ask from you, in order to realize these hopes, is to unite your efforts to ours, and we at once guarantee to you entire oblivion of all political errors which have preceded this proclamation.

"The better to attain the end that we propose, we invoke all informa tion, and will adopt all useful advice. We will surround ourselves with several notable inhabitants, distinguished by their patriotism. Let all who are animated by the same sentiment approach us with confidence. "Belgians, it is by such means that we hope to save, with you, this fine country, that is so dear to you.

"Given atAntwerp, the 5th of October 1830.

"WILLIAM, Prince of Orange."

It is not to be denied, that the Belgians have, in declaring their independence, taken up a position which does not appear to have been even in contemplation when the insurrection broke out. They had then a number of specific grievances, but the remedy of entire separation from the Northern states was not mentioned as the cure for any of them. It is but fair, in such a case, to let them tell their own story. The following manifesto, published by the Provisional Government, and probably drawn up by DE POTTER, gives a clear and condensed view of the condition of the country, and of the motives which have impelled it to seek redress as it has done.

"On the termination of the despotism of Napoleon," says the document, "Europe was remodelled by Monarchs who only understood the power of force, and were deaf to that of public opinion. Two leading faults were committed by them, by which the peace of Europe must atsome time or other be endangered. The first was.the recalling the family of the Bourbons to the throne of France ; the second was the uniting Holland and Belgium as one nation. We have seen the result of the first. Fortnnately the peace of the world has not been compromised. We will now.review the other, and state shortly and clearly the grievance of Belgium.

"Belgium had the right to obtain its own independence, but it sacrificed it to the repose of Europe. The treaty of London expressed gene-rous and noble sentiments; Belgium adopted them, and it waited for their being put into operation, with a surprising moderation. A fundamental. law was presented by the Prince of Nassau. The nation rejected this charter, dictated by Dutch interest, but it was imposed upon us. The Government was appointed by the Dutch, as if they had made a conquest of Belgium. Every thing was rcgulated for the interest of the former, as if Belgium were proscribed by a political barrier. The higher employments, both civil and military, as well as the secondary places, were given exclusively to the Dutch. The laws were always acted upon for the inte-rest of the Northern provinces. An odious Ministry condemned the more generous citizens, who dared to devote themselves to the defence of our liberties, by the means of commissions, always held in the court of Brussels, which proved itself as devoted and as servile as its Chief re. quired.

"In vain did the country demand the dismissal of M. Van Mennen . The King would not attend to our supplications. In vain did it demand.: redress for the just griefs under which it laboured. Three thousand petitioners were treated as factious by the journalist's of the King. This state of things could not last. The nation, denied its most just requests by its head, was forced to have recourse to extreme means to recover its rights. Before doing so, it repeated its supplications ; but what did it receive ? Nothing but vague promises. Delay inspired the people with terror. The Deputies of the provinces were repulsed by the King. A month passed over in this situation. The Prince of Orange came to Brussels; lie left it promising that our just grievances should be redressed. He gave his word of honour that the troops should not approach Brussels, and that he would return shortly. He then went to the Hague ; the States-General assembled. In place of submitting to them at once.a law to satisfy a population justly irritated, fifteen days were employed in discussing an answer to an insignificant address from the Throne. "An army was assembled—it marched upon Brussels, on an open city.

I:hout arms and without provisions. While we waited for the promised answer, Prince Frederick of Nassau, at the head of a horde of barbarians, entered within our gates, fired grape-shot on the tom7n, and carried through it death, fire, violation, and destruction. Some generous citizens devoted themselves to stop their ravages; the inhabitants of the neighbouring towns and villages ran to their succour in the defence of the sacred cause of liberty ; and, after four days of fighting—bloody, but glorious to the Belgians, the Prince was expelled, and he and his men were compelled to fly. "The Belgians wish to be free and independent. They have fought fortheir rightS, they have conquered for liberty, and they know how to preserve them. To remodel itself, is now the most pressing, ditScult7. This noble people find that, by their position, they cannot do so definitively by themselves. The maintenance of a general peace, which they above all desire, imposes on them Uligations to which they are ready to yield ; but the House of Orange has lost, in the days of the 23rd,. 24th, 25th, and 26th of September, its right to govern a people whom it has outraged, and whom it has attempted to destroy by its Janissaries. The days of Brussels, signalized by murder, robbery, rape, and fire, commanded by a Nassau, are the fruit of thirty days of deliberation and atrocious combination! Who is the Sovereign of ,Europe who can lend his aid to this Dutch dynasty ? None. Belgium is then free by its own courage ;—so it shall continue."

The complaint against the King, of delay, seems to be well founded. Had WILLIAM, when he received the Deputies from Brussels, announced his resolution to comply with the wishes of • the people. as he has now done, leaving to the States-General to give legal sanction to his decision—or even, without proceeding so far, had he abstained, until the States-General had decided, from any attempt at violence—we are inclined to think that an amicable settlement might have been made. But all his hesitation, and, unfortunately for himself, all his decision, was against the pOpular party. They might well distrust and cast oft one who, When they asked for relief, referred them to the Chambers, and when they attempted to take it for themselves, sent his soldiers to plunder and to murder them.

The diffusion of the revolutionary spirit continues, and cannot fail in a few weeks to embrace every fortress in the Netherlands. There is little fighting between the soldiers and the patriots. The soldiers consist, for the most part, of nearly equal portions of Dutch and Belgians; the former ill inclined to fighting, and the latter thinly disguising their determination to join their countrymen. Desertion takes place, not by companies, but by twos and threes, until in a few nights a garrison of a couple of thousands is reduced to eight or nine hundred : the duties of Nvatching the people, with such diminished numbers, becomes greater than their physical powers can bear—they refuse to act, and the fort or the town is evacuated. This process seems to be going on in every quarter, -and with the same uniform results. By combining several detachments, the King may be able to keep such a position at Antwerp for some time longer ; but even that is difficult with troops whose morale is bad, and who have from recent experience lost all confidence in one another.

. The Dutch troops are bad in more points of view than one. Holland is a mercantile and consequently a wealthy country. The condition of a soldier is despised, even by the lower orders of tradesmen. None but strangers, or the-very lowest and most worthless of the community, will become a soldier in Holland, Unless upon compulsion. An army made up of such materials May be formidable to its friends, but very seldom effects much against its enemies. The composition of the Dutch troops lends credit to the talcs of their atrocity which have appeared in private letters and in the Belgic journals, although the carelessness of the reporters, and the pretty notorious character of the Belgians, added to the obvious exaggeration in some cases, have thrown an air of incredibility over the whole. The Rev. Mr. KINSEY, whose letter to the MorningChronicle we noticed in our last number, has since transmitted a list of rapes, murders, and robberies, that would make our hair stand on end, if we could only prevail on ourselves to believe them: The first defect of Mr. KINSEY'S statement is its want of particularity,—namerous Englishmen were, he says, dragged out of their houses and robbed ; numerous houses of Englishmen were wantonly fired ; but who • the numbers were, we are left to guess. Where he descends to particulars, the monstrous. character of the barbarities detailed equally warrant our scepticism.He mentions, for instance, an English servant, who was crucified, burnt with a slow fire, and then shot; another, where a young lady was first violated before her father's face, and then shot; another, a boarding-school, where seventeen young ladies were violated, and of whom a number were English. We need not say that very strong and circumstantial evidence would be required to justify the belief of such atrocities, and that the crucifying case is so absurd as well as. hellish, that it seems to bear its own contradiction on the face of it. We cannot suppose that the Dutch tarried long enough at any one point during their two or three days' occupation of the Park, to enact such a scene. There is another bit of internal evidence which goes far to discredit Mr. Xmases statement—his thew that in all these outrages the English were the persons especially aimed at. We can easily suppose—indeed there seems to be no reason for doubt on the subject—that the English suffered severely during the continuance of the struggle, both from the assailants and the assailed. They lay in the way of both ; they occupied the very field on which the battle was fought. But to suppose that they, unless in so far as their locality exposed them, were the peculiar objects of the Dutch vengeance, is a hypothesis which has not a single argument to support it. The Belgians, we rather think, have taken advantage of Lord BLawrs-az's fate, which, whether accidental or not, semis to have been, at least as far as his country was concerned, a chance medley—to exaggerate the English sufferings, in order to interest the English nation on their side. It seems strange, if there had been any truth in Mr. KINSEY'S theory, that no complaint has yet been made by any of the aggrieved parties Themselves, either in Belgium or in England. Some of Mr. KiNszv's statements have been formally Contradicted by the anonymous correspondent of another paper, who says he went to the boarding-school—(we presume the one mentioned by Mr. KINSEY, but how did he find it out ?)—and that no such outrages had been perpetrated. • We •shall not decide between these conflicting statements, farther than to express an opinion, that though there has been exaggeration, we are not, from that circumstance to conclude that there Was no violence whereon to found it. The Dutch troops were confessedly without courage and without discipline, and such is precisely the description of force which is most disposed and most capable of acts of barbarity. On the other hand the burnings, and drinkings, and irregularities of the patriots, do not bespeak in them any great military superiority over their antagonists. On the subject of who were the guilty parties in the outrages of the three days—by which name the affair at Brussels deserves to be remembered—the Chronicle of this morning comments with equal point and sagacity.

"The Courier and Globe," he remarks, "have communications last night from Brussels. The Globe says, they can rely on-the scrupulous attention to accuracy as regards matters of fact;' and the Courier equally vouches for the authenticity of the picture drawn by its Correspondent. The Globe correspondent attributes the grossest misconduct to the Dutch troops, and confirms the statement of the Rev. Mr. Kinsey, that females were violated by them. The correspondent of the Courier again says, 'I have made constant inquiries amongst the inhabitants where the Dutch troops were, and not one can say but they acted-with kindness and humanity.. All the pillaging and burning of houses was done by the

Bruxellois.' . .

" That females have been violated we do not doubt, though we can understand why it should be deemed desirable to leave this matter in obscurity. That houses have been pillaged, too, we believe. But here we stop. In Belg-,iunz, the Dutch will be the guilty—in Holland, the Belgians. And the correspondents of the English Papers will be for the honour of the Belgians or the Dutch as they espouse their respective causes."

A private letter from Paris, alluding to the anticipated interference of Prussia and England, says that a proposal had been made to the French Government to have the frontier fortresses garrisoned by Prussian, English, and French troops, until an arrangement could be brought about between the King of the Netherlands and his subjects ; but that the French Cabinet rejected the project. We can hardly suppose that it ever was submitted to them. The march of the Prussians, which has excited so much attention, we rather believe has for its object the safetyof the provinces on the left bank of the Rhine. Whatever quarrel his own subjects may have with his Prussian Majesty for maintaining the government in its present form, it is quite obvious that strangers have no cause of complaint on that head. The troops of Prince FERDINAND have reached Antwerp in their retreat. His head-quarters were there on Saturday : they occupy a line reaching from Antwerp to Malines ; their rearguard, or, as from the change of front it may now be called, their advanced guard, occupying positions as far as the village of Effegham. They are in communication with CORI' HEYLIGER, who occupies a line stretching from Campenhout towards Louvaine. The two corps d'armee amount, it is said, to about twenty thousand men. Prince FREDERICK himself is at the Hague.

The general feeling of dissatisfaction would appear to have extended to Holland. A proclamation was issued at Rotterdam on the 4th respecting strangers, which, unless it be held to apply to Belgians cinly, from whom it is to be admitted no good could be expected to the Dutch Government, 'would argue anything rather than confidence on the part of the authorities. All persons on their arrival are to report themselves to the police ; those who do not are to be put under surveillance ; and those who harbour any such persons will be liable in a penalty of five guilders for each individual ; "and notwithstanding this, they will be liable to other penalties"— what these are is not said.

There was a proposal submitted to Prince FERDINAND, previous to his quitting Vilvorde, for an exchange of prisoners ; but as he insisted on the exchange .en masse—a form of exchange never proposed but at the final termination of hostilities—the negociation led to nothing.

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