-admirals and other officers; and establishes councils of war,
whose sentences are not executed till he approves them.

His revenue, exclusive of his private income, amounts to three hundred
thousand florins. The standing army which he commands consists of about
forty thousand men.

Such is the nature of the celebrated Belgic confederacy, as delineated
on parchment. What are the characters which practice has stamped upon
it? Imbecility in the government; discord among the provinces; foreign
influence and indignities; a precarious existence in peace, and peculiar
calamities from war.

It was long ago remarked by Grotius, that nothing but the hatred of his
countrymen to the house of Austria kept them from being ruined by the
vices of their constitution.

The union of Utrecht, says another respectable writer, reposes an
authority in the States-General, seemingly sufficient to secure harmony,
but the jealousy in each province renders the practice very different
from the theory.

The same instrument, says another, obliges each province to levy certain
contributions; but this article never could, and probably never will, be
executed; because the inland provinces, who have little commerce, cannot
pay an equal quota.

In matters of contribution, it is the practice to waive the articles of
the constitution. The danger of delay obliges the consenting provinces
to furnish their quotas, without waiting for the others; and then
to obtain reimbursement from the others, by deputations, which are
frequent, or otherwise, as they can. The great wealth and influence of
the province of Holland enable her to effect both these purposes.

It has more than once happened, that the deficiencies had to be
ultimately collected at the point of the bayonet; a thing practicable,
though dreadful, in a confederacy where one of the members exceeds in
force all the rest, and where several of them are too small to meditate
resistance; but utterly impracticable in one composed of members,
several of which are equal to each other in strength and resources, and
equal singly to a vigorous and persevering defense.

Foreign ministers, says Sir William Temple, who was himself a foreign
minister, elude matters taken ad referendum, by tampering with the
provinces and cities. In 1726, the treaty of Hanover was delayed by
these means a whole year. Instances of a like nature are numerous and
notorious.

In critical emergencies, the States-General are often