w
shrank from carrying out.]

[Pageheading: BELGIUM AND HOLLAND]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

_2nd December 1838._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and returns
this letter with the enclosures. He has read it and them with great
attention. Your Majesty will probably think it right to acquaint the
King that your Majesty had already seen his letter to Lord Palmerston.

Lord Melbourne cannot perceive the justice of the King's complaint.
For the sake of the King himself and of the Belgian nation, we are
most anxious to settle speedily and definitely the questions so
long pending between Belgium and Holland, and which arose from the
separation of the two countries in 1830. We can only settle it by the
agreement of the four Great Powers who constitute the Conference to
which the question was referred, viz., Austria, Prussia, England,
France. Of course it is of vital importance for us to carry them all
along with us, and for that reason we press France. If she differs
from us, there is a ground immediately laid for difference and war.

Lord Melbourne would suggest that your Majesty should say "that
your great affection for the King, as well as your anxiety for the
interests of your own country, and your desire for the promotion
of peace, render you most solicitous to have the Belgian question
speedily and definitively settled; that it appears to you that it can
only be settled by the agreement of the four Powers who constitute the
Conference, and that therefore you cannot but wish most strongly to
carry France as well as the two others along with you."[39]

[Footnote 39: See the Queen's letter of 5th December to the
King of the Belgians.]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

_3rd December 1838._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs
to acquaint that as soon as he arrived at half-past two, Sir George
Grey[40] ran in to acquaint him that the whole insurrection in Canada
was put down and suppressed.[41] Despatches have been received from
Sir John Colborne to say that the British turned out with the utmost
alacrity, the volunteers beat the French wherever they met them, the
whole are dispersed, and Sir John says that he feels no doubt of the
tranquillity of the Colony during the rest of the winter. Unless,
therefore, the Americans make an attempt upon Upper Canada, all is
well. Lord Melbourne will have the pleasure of retu