WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 1302: BELGIUM.
By Edward Farr
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

History - BritishHistory - Modern (1750+)History - RoyaltyHistory - Warfare

About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

BELGIUM.

Much concern was felt in England as to the part which Belgium would take in the terrible continental tragedy. The king being her majesty’s uncle, and also the uncle of her consort, the safety of his throne was regarded anxiously by the English court. As he had by his second marriage connected himself with the family of Louis Philippe, the French republicans looked upon him as a very suspicious neighbour; but the prudent policy of Lamartine prevented any collision, and checked the propagandism which both sections of French republicans desired to bring to bear upon Belgium. The “Reds,” perceiving that the provisional government was not disposed to embroil itself with foreign powers, organised an émeute in Belgium with a sort of filibustering expedition of their own. Several hundred socialists made their way into Belgium, and used every effort to induce the people to join them, but in vain,—a few only, who like themselves, held extreme and impracticable views of democracy, made any insurrectionary movement; and the affair exploded as harmlessly as Smith O’Brien’s abortive attempt at revolution in Ireland. Had any success, short of a complete revolution, attended the efforts of the French “sympathisers,” the armed intervention of England might have been necessitated, and another long war with France have spread its terrors, havoc, and ruin in Belgium.