nearly one hundred and fifty years, this noble river flowing through the midst of one of the most active and industrious countries in Europe, was forbidden to be navigated by a single native sail, every vessel which bore produce for Antwerp, being compelled to transfer her cargo to a Dutchman under whose flag alone it could reach its destination. This unnatural embargo was terminated by the French in 1794, and Antwerp under the dominion of France, rose again into new and augmented importance. Napoleon, enamoured of his theory, that France was nothing unless with the Rhine for her eastern boundary, and the Scheldt for the northern station of her navy, conceived numerous projects for its realization. At one time planning to build a city at Terneuse, at another, fixing on the vast alluvial plain that surrounds the Tête de Flandres, but finally determining to make Antwerp, herself, the object of his ambitious care, and render her, in his own words, “a pistol, perpetually at the throat of England.” With this view, its military defences were all restored--huge basins constructed at the east of the city, capable of floating, one twelve, and the other forty vessels of the line, and store-houses, rope-walks, and sail manufactories; everything, in short, for the equipment of an arsenal, were prepared upon a gigantic scale. In acknowledgment of these magnificent favours conferred upon their city, the merchants of Antwerp presented Napoleon with a frigate, fully equipped and stored. In 1807, ten vessels of the line had been built at Antwerp; in 1813, _thirty_ ships of war had been launched, and fourteen others were still upon the stocks. The fall of the Emperor, however, preceded that of his intended victim, and by the treaty of Paris in 1814, his vast constructions at Antwerp were ordered to be demolished--his buildings and magazines were all destroyed--the vessels of war found within the basins, were portioned out between Louis XVIII and the Prince of Orange, and the docks, alone, were spared from destruction, partly from the difficulty of accomplishing it, and partly at the entreaty of the merchants of Antwerp, as a harbour of refuge for their ships, which were liable to serious injury from the ice, which, in winter, is borne down the swollen current of the Scheldt.