ine should form the
natural frontiers of the kingdom of France.

That during the present summer a project for a partition treaty of
Holland has by the Cabinet of St. Cloud been laid before the Cabinet of
Berlin is a fact, though disseminated only as a rumour by the secret
agents of Talleyrand. Their object was on this, as on all previous
occasions when any names, rights, or liberties of people were intended to
be erased from among the annals of independence, to sound the ground, and
to prepare by such rumours the mind of the public for another outrage and
another overthrow. But Prussia, as well as France, knows the value of a
military and commercial navy, and that to obtain it good harbours and
navigable rivers are necessary, and therefore, as well as from principles
of justice, perhaps, declined the acceptance of a plunder, which, though
tempting, was contrary to the policy of the House of Brandenburgh.

According to a copy circulated among the members of our diplomatic corps,
this partition treaty excluded Prussia from all the Batavian seaports
except Delfzig, and those of the river Ems, but gave her extensive
territories on the side of Guelderland, and a rich country in Friesland.
Had it been acceded to by the Court of Berlin, with the annexed condition
of a defensive and offensive alliance with the Court of St. Cloud, the
Prussian monarchy would, within half a century, have been swallowed up in
the same gulf with the Batavian Commonwealth and the Republic of Poland;
and by some future scheme of some future Bonaparte or Talleyrand, be
divided in its turn, and serve as a pledge of reconciliation or
inducement of connection between some future rulers of the French and
Russian Empires.

Talleyrand must, indeed, have a very mean opinion of the capacity of the
Prussian Ministers, or a high notion of his own influence over them, if
he was serious in this overture. For my part, I am rather inclined to
think that it was merely thrown out to discover whether Frederick William
III. had entered into any engagement contrary to the interest of
Napoleon the First; or to allure His Prussian Majesty into a negotiation
which would suspend, or at least interfere with, those supposed to be
then on the carpet with Austria, Russia, or perhaps even with England.

The late Batavian Government had, ever since the beginning of the present
war with England, incurred the displeasure of Bonaparte. When it
apprehended a rupture from the turn