mon entrée à Amsterdam ne s'effaceront de ma mémoire, et je vous promets, par votre amour, que vous ne serez pas trompés. C'est votre vœu, Habitans des Pays-Bas, que mes rapports avec vous soient d'un ordre plus élevé que ceux qui eussent existé si je n'eusse jamais été éloigné. Votre confiance, votre amour me mettent la Souveraineté en main; je suis de toutes parts sollicité de l'accepter, parce que le bien du Peuple et la situation de l'Europe l'exigent.

Soit donc. Je sacrifierai mes opinions à vos désirs; je reçois ce que m'offrent les Pays-Bas; mais je ne le reçois que sous la garantie d'une Constitution sage qui protège à l'avenir votre liberté contre tous les abus possibles; je le reçois avec le sentiment profond des devoirs que cette acceptation m'impose.

Mes Ancêtres ont fondé votre indépendance. Son maintien sera un soin constant pour moi et pour mes Descendans.

Je compte dans les circonstances actuelles, encore un peu critiques, sur votre co-opération et sur vos sacrifices. Après des efforts de courte durée, j'espère qu'avec l'aide de Dieu aucun Etranger ne sera plus en état de résister au courage d'une Nation qui renaît, et aux armes victorieuses de nos Alliés.

Donné en la Maison de Ville d'Amsterdam, le 2 Décembre, 1813. GUILLAUME FREDERIC, Prince d'Orange.

Par ordre de Son Altesse Sérénissime,

VAN DER DUYK VAN MAASDAM.

PROCLAMATION of the Sovereign Prince of The Netherlands, announcing the appointment of a Special Commission, and the convocation of a General Assembly, to determine upon the New Constitution for the Kingdom.The Hague, 2nd March, 1814. (Translation.)

WE, William, by the grace of God Prince of Orange Nassau, Sovereign Prince of The United Netherlands, &c.

To all to whom these Presents shall come, greeting! Invited to the Sovereignty of these States by your confidence and your attachment, we from the first declared, that we would undertake the same only under the guarantee of a wise Constitution, which might secure your freedom against all possible abuses; and we have ever since continued to feel the necessity thereof.

We regarded it, therefore, as one of the first and most sacred of our duties, to summon together some Men of consideration, and to charge them with the weighty task of establishing a Fundamental Code, built upon your manners and your habits, and corresponding to the wants of the present time.

They cheerfully took upon themselves this office, performed it

with zeal, and have submitted to us the fruits of their uninterrupted labours.

After a careful examination of this work, we have given it our approbation. But this does not satisfy our heart. It respects the concerns of the whole Netherlands. The whole Dutch People must be recognised in this important work. That People must receive the strongest possible assurance, that their dearest interests are sufficiently attended to therein; that religion, as the fountain of all good, is thereby honoured and maintained, and religious freedom disturbed by nothing of temporal concerns, but secured in the most ample manner; that the education of youth, and the spread of scientific knowledge, shall be attended to by the Government, and freed from all those vexatious regulations which oppress the genius and subdue the spirit; that personal freedom shall no longer be an empty name, and dependant on the caprices of a suspicious and crafty Police; that an impartial administration of justice, guided by fixed principles, shall secure to every Man his property; that commerce, agriculture, and manufactures be no longer obstructed, but have free course, like rich springs. of public and private prosperity; that, therefore, no restraint be imposed on the domestic economy of the higher and lower classes of the State, but that they be conformable to the general Laws and the general Government; that the movements of the general Government be not palsied by too great a zeal for local interests, but rather receive from it an additional impulse; that the general Laws, by means of an harmonious co-operation of the 2 principal branches of the Government, be founded on the true interests of the State; that the finances and the arming of the People, the main pillars of the body politic, be placed in that central point, upon which the greatest and most invaluable privilege of every free People,-their independence,-may be firmly fixed. Which of you can doubt of this truth, after the terrible experience you have had of a Foreign Tyranny, which acknowledged no right when it wanted means for its own maintenance by violence; after having sighed, of late years, under the most oppressive yoke that ever was imposed since the Spanish sway?

Now at least you know the true value of those precious rights for which our Fathers sacrificed their property and their blood; of that happiness which they bequeathed to their Descendants; and which we saw lost through the adversity of the times!

Following, therefore, and deriving encouragement from their example, it becomes my duty, in imitation of those whose name I bear, and whose memory I honour, to restore that which is lost it is your duty to support me therein with all your efforts, that under the blessing of Divine Providence, who summons us to this task, we may hand our beloved Country completely re-conquered and re-established to our Children.

In order to be enabled to judge whether the Constitutional Code thus framed, as before stated, be a means of attaining the above great object, we have thought it right that the said Code be submitted for more mature consideration, to a numerous assembly of Persons, the most considerable and best qualified among you.

We have for that purpose appointed a Special Commission, who are to choose, out of a numerous List given in to us, 600 Persons, in due proportion to the population of each of the now existing Departments.

Honoured with your confidence, they will, on the 28th of this month, assemble in the Metropolis of Amsterdam, to come to a determination upon this weighty business.

They will in like manner, with the Letter of Convocation, receive the Plan of the Constitution, that they may be able to prepare their decision thereon with maturity, and calmness of deliberation; and for the more effectual attainment of this object, a Copy of the same shall be sent to each Member previously.

And as it is of the first importance that these Members be possessed of the general confidence, we order that a List of the Persons chosen for each Department be made public, and that to all the Inhabitants of the same, being Housekeepers, an opportunity shall be afforded, by signing his name without any other addition, in a Register which shall lie open in each Canton for 8 days, to disapprove of any such Person or Persons as he may deem not qualified.

No Inhabitant is deprived of this right, with the exception of domestic Servants, Valets, Bankrupts, and Persons in a state of nonage, or under accusation.

When it shall appear to us, from the summing up of the Registers, that the majority are satisfied with the Persons thus submitted to their election, we shall consider them as the Representatives of the whole Dutch People, call them together, appear in the midst of them, and salute them as constituting the Great Assembly, representing The United Netherlands.

They shall then commence their labours in freedom, and give us an account of their progress by a Committee appointed to that effect; and as soon as the adoption of the Constitutional Code is the result of their deliberations, we shall make the necessary arrangements for taking the Oath prescribed to us by the Constitution with all due solemnity, in the midst of the Assembly, and after that be installed in State.

In the adoption of these measures, worthy Countrymen, you must feel convinced, that the welfare of our beloved Country is my first and only object; that your interests and mine are the same; and how can they be more manifestly promoted, than by the introduction of Constitutional rules, in which you will find the guarantee of your dearest rights? They will furnish me with the advantage of conducting, on

fixed principles, the charge and responsibility of Government, assisted by the best and most intelligent of the Citizens; and will secure to me the continuance of that affection, the expression of which rejoices my heart, animates my courage, lightens my burthen, and binds me and my House for ever to our regenerated Country. Given at the Hague, this 2d of March, 1814, and of our Reign the 1st.

By Command,

A. R. FALCK, Secretary of State.

WILLIAM.

SPEECH of His Royal Highness the Sovereign Prince of The United Netherlands, on the opening of the Great Assembly of Notables.-Amsterdam, 29th March, 1814.

GENTLEMEN,

(Translation.)

It is with the most lively and heartfelt sensations that I open this Assembly. Removed from my native Country for 19 years, by the political storms that have agitated all Europe during the space nearly of a quarter of a century, at a period even when the career had scarcely been opened in which I could have proved useful to my Country, I felt myself more and more attached to The Netherlands, even by the accounts of the daily and increasing state of depression of that Nation, with whose glory and happiness the glory and happiness of my House have been so long connected. But the good fortune, the continued and unprecedented good fortune, of the common Oppressor of the Continent, seemed to render almost impossible the prospect of my ever beholding my native Country, and of beholding it emancipated; and, notwithstanding, thanks to the goodness of the Supreme Disposer of events, I behold myself, by the victorious arms of the Allied Avengers and Protectors of the violated rights of Nations, and by the energy of the Netherlanders themselves for the restoration of their liberty, not only returned to my native Country, but at the same time surrounded and supported by everything that can be offered to a Prince by the love and sincerity of a Nation; and could I then, without being sensibly affected, open an Assembly, in which a considerable number of the best and principal, of the most experienced and affluent Men of the Nation have united, to decide on the most important object that can ever be taken into consideration by a People, on the Constitution, on which will depend, not only the happiness of this generation, but, as we hope, also that of succeeding generations.

No, Gentlemen; I fully feel the affecting solemnity of this day; but, on that account, I am the more sensible of the duty incumbent on

me, to remind you, for the sake of our native Country, of the importance of your present Convocation.

To the declaration of the majority of the Nation, that they wished to see the exercise of the Sovereign Authority vested in me, I have replied, that I should assent to this only on one condition, namely, on this; that a Constitution, adapted to the exigencies of Holland, and to the present state of Europe, should sufficiently secure personal liberty, the safety of property, and, in one word, all the civil rights which characterize a free Nation,

A Committee, composed of Men whose patriotism and talents are unquestionable, have drawn up such a Constitution. Mr. Van Maanen will make you acquainted with the grounds on which this new political edifice has been erected; but it is by no means my intention, nor is it possible that it should be my intention, to convert the consideration of the most important affair into an idle solemnity.

Convinced, by what we have witnessed during 20 years, that the personal voting of a whole Nation, is, from the nature of things, almost nothing but a mere pageantry, I have, on that account, convoked this Assembly, in order to ascertain that Men, elected from all parts of the Country, and from among the most respectable Citizens, should, without precipitation, and after mature and quiet deliberation, without the operation of influence or persuasion, answer this question: Whether they had discovered in this Constitution a sufficient guarantee, not only for their own happiness and security, but also for those of their Children?

To demonstrate at full length, Gentlemen, that this business merits all your attention, would be to offer an insult to your judgment; but I must not refrain from reminding you, that it would be to offer an insult to mine, if any one of you could imagine, that, in this decision, he should be guided by anything but his own conviction, and by his own conscience.

The interests and the happiness of The Netherlands must alone be the objects of your deliberations, even as they are, as I call God to witness, the only objects of my views and wishes.

SPEECH of His Royal Highness the Sovereign Prince of The United Netherlands, on the occasion of his taking the Oath before the Great Assembly.—Amsterdam, 30th March, 1814.

GENTLEMEN,

(Translation.)

It affords me peculiar satisfaction to see my opinion of the Constitution confirmed by the declaration of so many Men of integrity and

talents.