If you happen to pass by Dodd's auction-room, on any Wednesday, towards
the hour of three in the afternoon, the chances are about seven to
one that you hear a sharp, smart voice articulating, somewhat in this
fashion:--“A very handsome tea-service, ladies. What shall I say
for this remarkably neat pattern? One tea-pot, one sugar-bowl, one
slop-basin, and twelve cups and saucers.--Show them round, Tim,” &c.
Now it is with no intention of directing the public eye to the “willow
pattern,” that I have alluded to this circumstance. It is simply,
because that thereby hangs an association, and I have never heard the
eloquent expatiator on china, without thinking of the Belgian navy,
which consists of--“One gun-boat, one pinnace, one pilot, one commodore,
and twelve little sailors.” Unquestionably, there never was a cheaper
piece of national extravagance than this, nor do I believe that any
public functionary enjoys a more tranquil and undisturbed existence than
the worthy “_ministre de la marine_,” whose duty it is to preside
over the fleet I have mentioned. Once, and once only do I remember that
his quiet life was shaken by the rude assault of political events:
it was when the imposing force under his sway undertook a voyage of
discovery some miles down the Scheldt, which they did alike to the
surprise and admiration of the whole land.
After a day's peaceful drifting with the river's current, they reached
the fort of Lillo, where, _more majorum_, as night was falling, they
prudently dropped anchor, having a due sense of the danger that might
accrue “from running down a continent in the dark.” There was, besides,
a feeling of high-souled pride in anchoring within sight, under the
guns, as it were, of the Dutch fort--the insolent Dutch, whom they, with
some aid from France--as the Irishman said of his marriage, for love,
and a trifle of money--had driven from their country; and, although the
fog rendered everything invisible, and the guns were spiked, still
the act of courage was not disparaged; and they fell to, and sang the
Brabançon, and drank Flemish beer till bed-time.
Happy and patriotic souls! little did you know, that amid your dreams of
national greatness, some half-dozen imps of Dutch middies were painting
out the magnificent tricolor streaks that adorned your good craft, and
making the whole one mass of dirty black.
Such was the case, however; and when day broke, those brilliant emblems
of Belgian independence had vanished, and in their place a murky line of
pitch now stood.
Homeward they bent their course, sadder and wiser men; and, to their
credit be it spoken, having told their sorrows to their sage minister,
they have lived a life of happy retirement, and never strayed beyond the
peaceful limits of the Antwerp basin.
Far be from me the unworthy object of drawing before the public gaze the
blissful and unpretending service, that shuns the noontide glitter of
the world's applause, and better loves the quiet solitude of their
own unobtrusive waters; and had they thus remained, nothing would
have tempted me to draw them from their obscurity. But alas! national
ambition has visited even the seclusion of this service. Not content
with coasting voyages, some twelve miles down their muddy river--not
satisfied with lording it over fishing smacks and herring wherries, this
great people have resolved on becoming a maritime power in blue water,
and running a race of rivalry with England, France, and Russia; and to
it they have set in right earnest.
They began by purchasing a steam-vessel, which happens to turn out
on such a scale of size, as to be inadmissible into any harbour
they possess. By dint of labour, time, cost, and great outlay, they
succeeded, after four months, in getting her into dock. But alas! if it
took that time to admit her, it takes six months to let her out again;
and, when out, what are they to do with her?
When Admiral Dalrymple turned farmer, he mentions in one of his letters,
the sufferings his unhappy ignorance of all agricultural pursuits
involved him in, and feelingly tells us: “I have given ten pounds for a
dunghill, and would now willingly give any man twenty, to tell me what
to do with it.” This was exactly the case with the Belgians. They had
bought a steam-ship, they put coals in her, and a crew; and then, for
the life and soul of them, they did not know what to do with them.
They desired an export trade--a _débouché_ for their Namur cutlery and
Venders' frieze. But where could they go? They had no colonies. Holland
had, to be sure: but then, they had quarrelled with Holland, and there
was no use repining. “What can't be cured,” &c. Besides, if they
had lost a colony, they had gained a cardinal; and if they had no
merchantmen, they had at least high-mass; and if they were excluded from
Batavia, why they had free access t the “Abbé Boon.”
There were, however, some impracticable people engaged in traffic,
who would not listen to these great advantages, and who were obstinate
enough to suppose that the country was as prosperous when it had a
market for its productions, as it was when it had none. And although the
priests, who have multiplied some hundredfold since the revolution, were
willing “to consume” to any extent, yet, unhappily, they were not as
profitable customers as their _ci-devant_ friends beyond sea.
Nothing then remained but to have a colony, and after much
consideration, long thought, and anxious deliberation, it was announced
to the chamber that the Belgians had a colony, and that the colony was
called “Guatemala.”
When Sancho Panza appealed to Don Quixote, to realise his promised dream
of greatness, you may remember, he always asked for an island: “Make
me governor of an island!” There was something defined, accurate, and
tangible, as it were, in the sea-girt possession, that suggested to the
honest squire's mind the idea of perfect, independent rule. And in the
same way, the Belgians desired to have an island.
Some few, less imaginative, suspected, however, that an island must
always have its limit to importation quicker attained than a continent,
and they preferred some vast, unexplored tract, like India, or Central
America, where the consumption of corduroy and cast-iron might have an
unexhausted traffic for centuries.
Now, it is a difficult condition to find out that spot on a map which
should realise both expectations. Happily, however, M. Van de Weyer had
to deal with a kind and confiding people, whose knowledge of geography
is about equal to a blind man's appreciation of scarlet or sky-blue.
Not only, therefore, did he represent to one party, the newly-acquired
possession as an island, and to the other as a vast continent, but he
actually shifted its locale about the globe, from the tropics to the
north-pole, with such admirable dexterity, that not only is all cavil
silenced about its commercial advantages, but its very climate has
an advocate in every taste, and an admirer in every household.
Steam-engines, therefore, are fabricated; cannon are cast; railroads
are in preparation; broadcloth is weaving; flax is growing; lace is
in progress, all through the kingdom, for the new colony of
Guatemala,--whose only inhabitants are little grateful for the profound
solicitude they are exciting, inasmuch as, being but rats and sea-gulls,
their modes of living and thinking give them a happy indifference about
steam-travelling, and the use of fine linen.
No matter;--the country is prospering--shares are rising--speculations
are rife--loans are effected every day in the week, and M. Van de Weyer
sleeps in the peaceful composure of a man who knows in his heart, that
even if they get their unwieldy craft to sea, there is not a man in
the kingdom who could, by any ingenuity, discover the whereabout of the
far-famed Guatemala.
[Illustration: 179]