The period of its union with Holland, however, from 1815 to 1830, may be said to have been the golden age of Antwerp. Its situation for trade is by far more favourable than either Rotterdam or Amsterdam, and being admitted, along with them, to an equal participation in all the resources of the kingdom, it rapidly outstripped them in every department of trade, so much so, that, at the period of the revolution, “_Antwerp did more business, in every article of colonial produce, with the exception of tobacco, than Amsterdam and Rotterdam united._”[4] The events of the revolution put an instantaneous check to this career of affluent prosperity; Antwerp, compelled to form a portion of the independent kingdom without colonies, or commerce, or foreign relations, found her shipping laid up idle in her docks, and her merchants, conscious of the ruin which had overwhelmed their prospects at home, transferred their capital, and their exertions to Holland, and united their fate to that of their now triumphant rivals. In 1838, all the ports of Belgium possessed but one hundred and eighty-four sail of merchant vessels, of whom one hundred and fifty-two were employed merely in the coasting and channel trade, and thirty-two in foreign voyages, whilst, in the same year, Holland had no less than 1400 sail. From the events of 1830, and their results, Antwerp never has, and never can, thoroughly recover. For some years after the Repeal of the Union, her quays and harbour were literally motionless and empty; and, at the present moment, even with occasional revivals, her trade appears to have only the fate of Venice or of Genoa in prospect. Her chief employment is in carrying the raw material which is to supply her own manufactures, and which she must do at a disadvantage in freights, as her shipments in return fall far short of her importations. Of 2662 Belgian vessels, which cleared out from her various ports between 1831 and 1836, no less than 739 _went out in ballast_! In the years immediately succeeding the revolution, the shipping trade of Antwerp seemed to undergo an absolute paralysis. In 1829, the year preceding the Repeal of the Union, 1028 vessels entered the port, amounting to a tonnage of 160,658 tons. In 1831, the year after the Repeal, only 398 vessels entered the Scheldt with a tonnage of 53,303 tons! Since that period, a superficial glance at the returns, would lead to a belief that the trade had more than recovered itself. In 1832 1,254 vessels entered with a tonnage of 150,294 1833 1,104 129,607 1834 1,064 141,465 1835 1,089 153,243 1836 1,245 176,079 1837 1,426 225,030 1838 1,538 257,048 1829 955 136,456 1830 1,028 160,658