Scheldt was blocked by Holland,
and the ocean trade of Antwerp obliterated. Her population disappeared,
her wharves rotted, and her canals were choked with mud. It is
hard to apportion the share of wickedness between a monarch
who destroys men and women to satisfy his own religious lust,
and a nation which drains the life-blood of another to satisfy its
lust for gold. One wonders in what category the instigator of the
present war should appear.

At the very beginning of last century Napoleon visited Antwerp, and
asserted that it was "little better than a heap of ruins." He recognized
its incomparable position as a port and as a fortress, and he
determined to raise it to its former prosperity, and to make it the
strongest fortress in Europe. He spent large sums of money upon it,
and his refusal to part with Antwerp is said to have broken off the
negotiations of Chatillon, and to have been the chief cause of his
exile to St. Helena. Alas his enemies did not profit by his genius. We
are the allies of his armies now, but we have lost Antwerp. Germany
will be utterly and completely crushed before she parts with that
incomparable prize. A mere glance at the map of Europe is sufficient
to convince anyone that in a war between England and Germany it is
a point of the first strategical importance. That our access to it should
be hampered by the control of Holland over the Scheldt is one of the
eccentricities of diplomacy which are unintelligible to the plain man.
The blame for its loss must rest equally between Britain and Belgium,
for Belgium, the richest country in Europe for her size, attempted to
defend her greatest stronghold with obsolete guns; whilst we, who
claim the mastery of the seas, sacrificed the greatest seaport in
Europe to the arrangements of an obsolete diplomacy. If we are to
retain our great position on the seas, Antwerp must be regained. She
is the European outpost of Britain, and, as has so often been pointed
out, the mouth of the Scheldt is opposite to the mouth of the Thames.

In Antwerp, as we saw her, it was almost impossible to realize the
vicissitudes through which she had passed, or to remember that her
present prosperity was of little more than fifty years' growth. On all
sides we were surrounded by wide boulevards, lined by magnificent
houses and public buildings. There are few streets in Europe to
eclipse the great Avenue des Arts, which, with its continuations,
extends the whole length of the