ject to the arrangements made by the convention signed at Mentz, March 31, 1831, for the navigation of the Rhine, as far as they may apply to the said river.

Art. V. The high contracting parties pledge themselves to draw up, without delay, a treaty to determine the relations between the states of the king of the Netherlands and the king of Belgium, to a concurrence in which they will invite the courts of Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

Art. VI. The exchange of the ratifications shall take place in London; ten days will be the limited period allowed.

NOTE and COUNTER-PROJECT of HOLLAND.

To their Excellencies Prince Talleyrand and Lord Palmerston,

London, Feb. 5. The undersigned has the honour to offer to their excellencies the plenipotentiaries of France and of Great Britain the exposé and communication which follows.

On the 2nd of January, the cabinet of the Hague received from the governments of France and England a proposition to conclude a preliminary convention, the project of which was submitted to him at the same time. In replying with anxious speed to that invitation on the 9th following, the court of the Hague adopted the offer, on the condition of some modifications in the substance of the articles. By the note which accompanied the modified project, the undersigned received the special mandate not to negotiate or sign that transaction, except as inseparably connected with the revocation of the orders emanating from the two governments in respect to Dutch commerce, and the liberation of the

troops and marine led prisoners into France. Under these new circumstances the position of the undersigned with respect to the representatives of the two courts, already clearly indicated in the above note of the 9th of January, and in the conferences at the foreign-office, was explained once more in the answers which the undersigned had the honour of transmitting to their excellencies on the 31st of January. It would seem that he had dissipated even the shadow of a doubt,

When, after some preparatory interviews, their excellencies took into consideration the modified project of his court, he was much grieved to see that they judged it necessary not only to reject all its desired modifications, but even to present to the undersigned not only their own project of the 2nd of January, without any change whatever, but augmented by two new articles, little calculated to render it more acceptable.

The undersigned abstains the more willingly from giving way to detailed objections, as he wished rather to suppose "that the project of the 2nd of January had been abandoned," as their excellencies had themselves explained it some time previous, in offering motives which would necessarily call for all the circumspection of the undersigned, and induce him naturally to apply himself in preference to another project, of which they left him the choice. This other project, disengaged from article 6, which supposed in the undersigned a power which he has not-that of concluding with two powers a definitive treaty, to which five are contracting parties with the king of the Netherlands, appeared to present stipulations generally con.

ment of the duties of peage and of search established in 1814.

Art. IV. The courts of the Netherlands, of France, and of England, engage to occupy themselves with out delay with the definitive treaty which shall fix the relations between the Netherlands and Belgium. To that effect they will invite the courts of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, to concur and participate in it.

Art. V. The exchange of the ratifications of the present convention shall take place in London in the space of 10 days, or sooner if possible.

NOTE addressed by PRINCE TALLEYRAND and LORD PALMERSTON to BARON VAN ZUYLEN VAN NYEVELT.

London, Feb. 14. The undersigned have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the note which Baron Van Zuylen addressed to them on the 3rd instant, and they must, at the same time, express their profound regret at hav ing learned by this note, and by the personal communications which they have lately had with Baron Van Zuylen, that the small extent of his powers, and the nature of the instructions which he had received, deprive them of almost every hope of concluding with the Dutch government either a final or a preliminary arrangement, by which the differences between Holland and Belgium might be terminated.

When the evacuation of the citadel of Antwerp rendered it possible to resume the negotiations, the governments of France and Great Britain did not lose a moment in proposing to the Dutch government, by their chargé d'affaires at the Hague, a convention, destined to establish between Holland and Bel

The preliminary convention proposed on the 2nd of January, was founded upon the principle that the reciprocal exchange of the territories should take place immediately between the two parties, and it was proposed, in consequence, that the Dutch should evacuate forts Lillo and Liefkenshoek, and the Belgians, Dutch Limburg and the German part of Luxemburg.

The necessary results of this reciprocal evacuation were to be an amnesty granted to the inhabitants of the evacuated districts, and for the Belgians, the immediate enjoyment of the free use of the commercial roads through Limburg, which has been guaranteed to them by the five powers, as a condition of the arrangement by which the right bank of the Meuse and the entire sovereignty of Maestricht were secured to his majesty the king of the Netherlands, grand duke of Luxemburg.

These arrangements being once made, a reduction of the armies of the two countries to the peace establishment seemed well calculated to prevent the renewal of hostilities, which the five powers have so often declared it to be their intention to hinder by all possible means; and it seemed reason

able to hope, that so decided a manifestation of pacific intentions on both sides, would tend to diminish the mutual irritation which the threatening attitude of armies stationed almost in sight of each other, must inevitably produce, and that new facilities would thus be found for settling the few questions still under discussion.

It is evident, that the Belgians could not accept any provisional arrangement which did not give them the immediate enjoyment of the navigation of the Meuse, and secure to them till the conclusion of a definitive treaty, the continuance of the navigation of the Scheldt, as they have enjoyed it since the month of January, 1831. In return for these conditions, the governments of France and Great Britain offered the immediate cessation of the embargo laid on the Dutch ships, and the sending back of the Dutch troops now detained in France.

It was with extreme regret that the undersigned learned by the despatch of baron Verstolk, dated the 9th of January, and by the counter-project annexed to it, that the above-mentioned proposals had been rejected by the Dutch govern

ment.

Baron Verstolk has not, indeed, positively stated that the proposals were rejected, but it was to be inferred from the counter-project which accompanied his despatch, that the proposals were not accepted.

This counter-project was inadmissible for what it contained, and gave ground for decisive objections for what it did not contain.

It required, that the Dutch government should be authorized to levy a tonnage duty on the Scheldt, without entering into any of the

obligations dependent on this right, such as those which relate to the placing of the buoys and the pilotage on the river, which must be inseparably connected with the levying of the duty; and it also required that this duty should be paid at Flushing or at Bath,-a demand which was subject to great objections, because it would lead to the detention and delay of vessels navigating the Scheldt.

It also demanded a transit duty on the roads through Limburg, though the Five Powers have guaranteed to Belgium the use of those roads for the advantage of commerce, without any duty except a duty for their repair.

Lastly, it required that the governments of France and Great Britain should engage that Belgium should pay annually, till the conclusion of a definitive treaty with Holland, the sum of 8,400,000 florins, in half-yearly payments, for its share of the interest of the common debt of the late kingdom of the United Netherlands. But this considerable annual payment has been assigned to Belgium by the treaty of the 15th of November 1831, as part of a general and final arrangement, by which various commercial advantages were to be secured to it, and by which the king grand duke was formally to accede to the territorial demarcation, and to recognize the sovereign of Belgium.

It is, therefore, evidently impossible for Belgium to take upon itself the payment of any part whatever of this annual charge till it is put in possession of all the commercial advantages which a definitive treaty is to secure to it, and before the territorial limits and its sovereign are formally recognized by the king grand duke.