rtue to abstain from warring against the power which imposes
a curb on our most cherished wishes.

The superior power of Charles awakened at the same time in the
Netherlands that distrust which always accompanies inferiority. Never
were they so alive to their constitutional rights, never so jealous of
the royal prerogative, or more observant in their proceedings. Under,
his reign we see the most violent outbreaks of republican spirit, and
the pretensions of the people carried to an excess which nothing but the
increasing encroachments of the royal power could in the least justify.
A Sovereign will always regard the freedom of the citizen as an
alienated fief, which he is bound to recover. To the citizen the
authority of a sovereign is a torrent, which, by its inundation,
threatens to sweep away his rights. The Belgians sought to protect
themselves against the ocean by embankments, and against their princes
by constitutional enactments. The whole history of the world is a
perpetually recurring struggle between liberty and the lust of power and
possession; as the history of nature is nothing but the contest of the
elements and organic bodies for space. The Netherlands soon found to
their cost that they had become but a province of a great monarchy. So
long as their former masters had no higher aim than to promote their
prosperity, their condition resembled the tranquil happiness of a
secluded family, whose head is its ruler. Charles V. introduced them
upon the arena of the political world. They now formed a member of that
gigantic body which the ambition of an individual employed as his
instrument. They ceased to have their own good for their aim; the
centre of their existence was transported to the soul of their ruler.
As his whole government was but one tissue of plans and manoeuvres to
advance his power, so it was, above all things, necessary that he should
be completely master of the various limbs of his mighty empire in order
to move them effectually and suddenly. It was impossible, therefore,
for him to embarrass himself with the tiresome mechanism of their
interior political organization, or to extend to their peculiar
privileges the conscientious respect which their republican jealousy
demanded. It was expedient for him to facilitate the exercise of their
powers by concentration and unity. The tribunal at Malines had been
under his predecessor an independent court of judicature; he subjected
its decrees to the rev