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2. The status of Antwerp.
It may be urged that the position of Antwerp has no obvious relation to the question of fortifications at Flushing: the point is however pertinent to the present discussion, inasmuch as it has been contended in certain organs of the Dutch press that any restrictions upon Dutch sovereignty over the Scheldt, in so far as they might be held to apply to the strengthening of Flushing, must be relaxed, owing to breach of treaty obligations involved in the fortification of Antwerp. Without pausing to examine the cogency of this argument, it may suffice to furnish a statement of fact as to the premiss upon which it is based.
December 26.
Before the departure of Lord Castlereagh from Londen for the Memorandum, Congress of Chatillon a memorandum was delivered to him for his 1813(Most Secret). information and guidance: he was instructed to declare that one of Lord Castlereagh, the conditions, sine quá non, upon which Great Britain could venture March 4, 1814.
No. 26, Chaumont, to divert herself of her recent conquests, was the absolute exclusion Foreign Office of France from any naval establishment on the Scheldt, and Memorandum, especially at Antwerp.
In the treaty for the suspension of hostilities, signed at Paris on the 30th May 1814, it was accordingly stipulated (article 15) that Antwerp should, for the future, be solely a commercial port; and the regulation of details was postponed to the Congress of Vienna.
No. 1512. Confidential, February 15, 1855.
At the Congress of Vienna a Commission was appointed to deal, inter alia, with the conversion of Antwerp into a commercial port; and the Duke of Wellington, in accordance with the views of the Duke of British Admiral Martin, had urged the destruction of certain works, Vienna, March 3,
Wellington, No. 5,
including the entrenched camp above the citadel and the basins. 1815.
At the same time His Grace urged upon His Majesty's Government that the arguments against the destruction of the basins, which would have to be replaced by others for commercial purposes, and against the destruction of the line of works to the north, which was absolutely necessary for the defence of the town, were very strong, and that he was opposed to such demolition.
The Board of Admiralty concurred in the views of the Duke of Duke of Wellington; and finally at Vienna it was agreed that No. 17, Vienna,
Wellington, the consideration and execution of what should be destroyed March 24, 1815. should be referred to commissioners appointed by the British and To Duke of Dutch Governments.
Wellington, No. 8, March 26, 1815.
The arrangements respecting Antwerp were not recorded in Lord Clancarty, the General Treaty of the Congress of Vienna, as it was thought April 15, 1815.
No. 20, Vienna, there, and the British plenipotentiary concurred, that the necessary measures should be immediately executed without being rendered public. The report of the commission which considered the question was, however, adopted in General Conference, and admitted as an article in one of the Protocols, and the following extract may be quoted:
鼎曲
Les puissances ayant stipulé dans le XV* article du Traité de Paris que, dorénavant, le port d'Anvers sera uniquement un port de commerce,
Protocol of
March 29, 1815.
le mode le plus simple pour l'exécution de cette stipulation sera sans doute
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