This maxim, too, however formerly plausible, will not now hold
water. This scheme is full of intricacy, and may cause him everywhere to
lose the hearts of his people. These counsellors forget that a corrupted
army was the very cause of the ruin of his brother-in-law, and that he
is himself far from secure from a similar corruption.
[Sidenote: Brabant.]
Instead of reconciling himself heartily and _bona fide_, according to
the most obvious rules of policy, to the States of Brabant, _as they are
constituted_, and who in _the present state of things_ stand on the same
foundation with the monarchy itself, and who might have been gained with
the greatest facility, they have advised him to the most unkingly
proceeding which, either in a good or in a bad light, has ever been
attempted. Under a pretext taken from the spirit of the lowest chicane,
they have counselled him wholly to break the public faith, to annul the
amnesty, as well as the other conditions through which he obtained an
entrance into the Provinces of the Netherlands under the guaranty of
Great Britain and Prussia.
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