Antwerp and Ostend are suffering, also, by being defrauded of their fair proportion of legitimate commerce by the extensive system of contrabandism, which prevails upon all the Belgian frontiers, and is carried on in foreign vessels; a loss to which they would not be subject, were the government in a position to protect the portion of trade to which the country must still give employment, by an effectual system of the _douane_ upon the frontiers and the coast. Antwerp had once a most extensive manufacture of silk; in 1794, there were twelve thousand workmen employed in that branch alone. The number is now reduced to two hundred, and their only employment is in producing a beautiful description of rich black taffetas, which is used for the Spanish head-dresses, still worn by females. Another most important branch of maritime trade, that of the transit of goods for consumption in the interior of Europe, has been almost entirely drawn from Antwerp by the Dutch, but the government hope to recover it, by means of the railroad, from the sea to the Rhine. Here, again, the most formidable opposition may be looked for from Holland, whose vessels on the Rhine are prepared to dispute with her the possession of this important department. Independently of the fact, that the carriage of goods by railway in England, where it has been most extensively tried, has not, as yet, answered the expectations of its projectors; the Dutch, having by their recent treaty with Prussia, obtained the free navigation of the Rhine, on the same footing as those vessels which bear the Prussian flag, will be disposed to make sacrifices in their freights, in order to underbid their rivals by land; the loss on which will be a very trifle compared with that which must ensue, if the Belgians are disposed to play out the same “desperate game with cold iron.” At the present moment, I am told, that the Rhinvaeders, of from two hundred to three hundred tons burthen, carry goods for from eight to nine florins the _last_, from Rotterdam to Cologne. This charge, it is natural to suppose, they will be able to reduce, so soon as a competition is instituted by the railroad. The advantage on the side of the latter will be manifest, as regards the item of time, the journey to Cologne by the railroad occupying but twenty-four hours, for what may require a number of days by the Rhinvaerder. But the question is--can the directors, or rather the government, whose property it is, reduce the carriage so low, as, with charges of all kinds, to underbid the Dutch to such an extent as to command a preference? A Belgian gentleman, who spoke to me in high hopes as to the ultimate success of the railroad in the struggle, admitted, at once, that it could only be achieved by a dead loss upon the adventure--_which, however, he said, the government would, as usual, bear out of the taxes_! Well may the merchants of Antwerp apply to the concocters of the revolution, the complaint against those who,