The refusal of Great Britain to concede the whole question has, at all times, excited an intense feeling on the continent, and the Belgians themselves are amongst the loudest in denouncing this “jealous and narrow-minded policy of England;” forgetful that they themselves in 1814 adopted identically the same course, and prohibited under pain of fine and imprisonment the exit of their own machinery or artisans, such as they were! Even now, the value of that which England conceded, is forgotten in the importance attached to that which she still withholds, and even the appearance of mystery connected with the prohibition increases its importance in imagination and whets the appetite to obtain it. A whimsical illustration of their ideas upon the subject occurs in the work of M. Briavionne, who gravely asserts that “the manufacturers of Lancashire, impatient to participate in the cares of the government upon this point, have submitted to a voluntary tax sufficient to organize a perpetual guard, which surrounds Manchester night and day to prevent the exit of machinery.”[17] However, it is notorious that notwithstanding these sleepless precautions and in spite of every prohibition, machinery of every description is at the present moment smuggled into Belgium, and every other state that requires it--not, perhaps, in such quantities as to serve for the fitting up of extensive factories, but so as to afford a model of every improvement and every new invention for the instant adoption, and imitation of the continental engineers and mechanicians. Thus provided and thus encouraged, speculating upon capital supplied lavishly by their government, equipped with the most valuable English tools, inspected by English artisans, and working from English models, the Belgians have now far outstripped all the rest of Europe in the manufacture of machines of every description, and in all but the cost of construction, and that beauty of finish which matured skill can alone achieve, they at present bid fair to rival England herself in her peculiar and hitherto undisputed domain. The establishment of the Phœnix, is one of those which have sprung up, thus stimulated and thus encouraged. It was originally erected by an individual proprietor, M. Huytens Kerremans, in 1821, and attained much of its reputation under the management of an Englishman, named Bell, so much so, that at the period of the revolution in 1830, it employed upwards of two hundred and twenty workmen daily. In 1836, on the death of the proprietor, it passed into the hands of a joint stock company, by whom it has been enlarged to more than thrice its previous extent, at an expense of upwards of one million of francs. It is at present conducted by Mr. Windsor, a gentleman from Leeds, and is certainly the most admirably arranged establishment of the kind I have ever seen--those of England not excepted.