"But, it will be said, is it not manifest that the navigation of Antwerp being opened, commerce, by reascending the river, would diffuse her benign influence throughout all the extent of an agreeable, and fertile territory, full of canals and great roads, &c.? I answer again, why would not the ports of Bruges, Ghent, Ostend, and Nieuport produce the same effect? It is even apparent, that these ports would lose by the new outlet of Antwerp, the little commerce which remained to them. In that case, Brabant would only raise itself on the ruins or at the expense of Flanders. The liberty of this river would enrich perhaps the interior of the country, but it would certainly impoverish the coasts of the sea. They say it is unjust to hold the Scheldt shut up; but would it not, on the contrary, be the height of injustice to open again a navigation, assured to the Hollanders by the natural consequence of a revolution universally ratified, and by a long possession? What man, what State, would be authorised to appropriate a thing to itself because it was for his convenience? This rule, it is true, has in our days effected the dismemberment of Poland, the invasion of Silesia, and the present war of England against Holland. But in taking away the property of the Dutch, with what right can one find fault with the violence of Russia? "It will be said, that the restraint of a river dug by nature, for the use of the inhabitants who live upon the banks, is contrary to natural right, against which no prescription ever runs. But do not the turnpikes, or fall-stops, with which these rivers are thickset, contravene also the rights of nature? The house of my neighbor intercepts the light, of which I have great occasion; have I the right for this reason to pull it down?