The Belgic Notables met on the 10th instant. The sittings

are in the hall formerly used for those of the States-General. M. GENDEBIEN acted as President, being the oldest member of the Congress. A Motion to announce their meeting to the Provisional Government, by whose warrant it had met, was actually opposed by a large portion of the deputies ! It was only on the appeal of a Mynheer VAN SNICK that two members were at length deputed to tell DE POTTER and his companions that the creature of their hands wished to see them ! When the Provisional Government made their appearance, DE POTTER was graciously informed that he might address the Assembly ; and he read, accordingly, the following speech.

"In the name of the Belgian people, the Provisional Government opens the assembly of the representatives of the nation. "The nation has confided to those representatives the august mission of founding, on the broad and solid basis of liberty, the edifice of the new social order, which will be the principle and the guarantee of durable happiness.to Belgium. "You know, .gentlemen, that, at the time of our union with Holland, a

futidanientil:law was presented to an-assembly of Notables, chosen by the ,Governirietit, not,talexamine,,discuss, modifyi., and, lastly acceOt it, and to make it the condition of a compact beween tifeuprelind-theliead of the state; but solely and implicitly* submit to it, or totally to reject it • It was rejected, as might have been expected from thegood sense-tisk•in- Iegrity of the Belgians, but by,an unparalleled subterfuge it was declared to be accepted, and a: constitution imposed by Holland oppressed our•country, „f " If, at least, this fundamental law had been sincerely executed in all

its parts, with time, perhaps, and by the aid of . the progress which the arbitrary conduct of Ministers compelled us daily to make in the career of constitutional opposition, it might have become the hope of Belgian liberty. " But, far from this, contracts violated, instruction fettered, the press

condemned to be nothing more than an instrument of Government (pou- voir), or forced to silence—the arbitrary substitution of the regime of de- crees (orrites) to the legal system established by the social compact—the right of petition disregarded—the confusion of all powers, which were be- come the property of one—the despotical imposition of a privileged lan- guage—the power of removin„o- (amovibilite) the Judges, degraded to act the part of Commissioners of Government, and the complete absence of the guarantee of publicity, and of that of the Jury—an enormous debt and expenditure, the only portion which Holland brought us at the time of our deplorable union—taxes overwhelming by.their amount, and still snore by the manner in which they were apportioned, :which was wholly unpopular, wholly bearing on the indigent classes—laws always been voted by the Dutch for Holland only, and always against Belgium, represented so unequally in the States-General—the seat of all the great constituted bodies, and of all important establishments, fixed in Holland—the scandalous misapplication of the funds specially destined to favour manufactures —the most offensive partiality in the distribution of civil and military employments by a Government in whose eyes the name of Belgium was a disgrace—in a word, all Belgium treated as a conquered province, as a colony—every thing, gentlemen, rendered a revolution necessary and inevitable, and hastened its approach.

"Such just and real grievances could not but insure the result of it. " We had risen against despotism, to reconquer our rights ; all were heated by tyranny as rebels. Our cities burnt—the most barbarous treatment even of old men and of women—the rights of humanity, the laws of war trampled under foot—testify the ferocity of our enemy, and call down blessings on the victory of the people, which has cleared our territory of them. "The fruit of this victory was independence. The people has declared it through us. As the organ of its wishes, the Provisional Government has called you together, gentlemen, to consolidate it for ever. "But, till you could perform this task, a centre of action was neces- sary to provide for the first and most urgent wants of the state. A Pro- visional Government was established, and made up for a time for the ab- sence dial( authority. The necessity for a government of some kind justi- fied its mission, and the assent of the -people has confirmed it. "Every thing was to be done, every thing was to be created. It was necessary to reorganize the internal administration, the j udicial authority, the army, the finances, and the citizen guards, who will henceforth be the support of modern empires. It is for you, gentlemen, and for the nation, to judge whether, with the few means that were at our disposal, we have succeeded in preparing for Belgium a future course of strength and pros- perity.

"Our acts are known to you, gentlemen ; and the nation, we hope, has

ratified them. The odious tax of the abottage is. abolished, the proceed- ings in the criminal courts rendered entirely public, the institution of the Jury promised, and new guarantees secured"to persons tried before the courts of assize ; the abolition of the degrading punishment of the basti- nade, the popular election of the Burgomasters and regencies (city magis; tracy), the direct election of the Deputies to the National Congress, no more general boards of police, no more high police, the enfranchisement of the dramatic art, the abolition of the lottery, the publicity of the accounts, and the budgets of the Communes ; and, lastly, full and entire liberty of the press, of instruction, of associations of all kinds, and of opinion and forms of religious worship, henceforth delivered from all fears of persecution, and from all danger of protection ;—such, gentle- men, are the principal titles to approval with which the Provisional Go-

vernment appears before the nation and its representatives. " As for relations with foreign countries, we have not thought it advisable to enter into any such, under the circumstances in which the nation and we ourselves were placed. Besides, we know for certain, and we can give you the positive assurance, that the prin- ciple of non-intervention would be strictly observed towards us. We, therefore, thought that free Belgium ought to found its independence by its own force, always ready to oppose whoever should attempt to impede this sacred right. "Since we took this resolution, we have received from the five great

Powers recent and official communications, which we are happy to he able to lay before you on this solemn day. These communications fully confirm the assurances previously given, and make us hope, with the speedy cessation of hostilities, the evacuation, without any condition, of the whole territory of Belgium.

" Gentlemen, you are going to finish and to consolidate our work. Found the edifice of our future prosperity on the principles of the liberty of all—of the equality of all in the eye of the law—and of the most rigid economy. Let the people be called to profit by our revolution : let the expenditure of the state be diminished in the proportion of its real wants—the salaries of public functionaries reduced, so as to be no more than a just indemnity for the time and talents which they devote to the country. Lastly, the suppression of useless offices, and of the numerous pensions too often granted to servility, will enable you to con- summate the work of our national representation. " And we, gentlemen, in whatever situation we may be placed, shall support, by all our wishes—by all our means—by all our efforts—this patriotic work ; too happy, after its complete success, to mingle in the ranks of the people, who will both have conquered and insured the bene- fits of victory.

"In the name of the Belgic people, THE NATIONAL CONGRESS IS IN- STALLED.

(Signed) " DE POTTER, "JOLLY, " ALEX. GENDEBIEN, "J. VANDERLINDEN, "CH. ROGIER, "F. DE COPPIN, "Baron Emm. D'HOOGVORST, (By order)" L A.Vam DE WEYER!' A motion of thanks to the Provisional Government was made subsequent to DE POTTER'S retiring, hut dropped from not being supported. On the 11th, a M. SIIRLET DE CHOILIM was chosen President—as he states it himself, by the friendly zeal of his former eolleagues (who, from this fact, must have been generally re- turned), as he happened to be unknown to a great many of the Assembly. The meeting of the 11th was adjourned by the coming On of darkness ; the Belgians not having yet adopted our improve- ment of meeting in the afternoon and sitting until the morning— they meet in they morning and sit until the afternoon. On the 12 th, a committee Was proposed to draw up an answer to the mes- sage of the Provisional Government ; which motion was opposed, on the ground that the first act of the Assembly ought to be the formation of rules by which to regulate its proceedings. While the Assembly was debating the proposition and amendment, . a message was broUght that the Provisional Government were. at the door ; and on their being admitted, M. ROGIER advanced to the President's chair, and depositing on the tables a journal of the acts of the Provisional Government from the date of its assuming power, in his own name and in the name of his colleagues, with the exception of DE POTTER and DE. HOOGVORST, resigned the authority of the government into the hands Of the Assembly. . A motion was immediately carried by acclamation, and ordered to htheactommunicated to the members of the Provisional Government,

" The National Congress, impressed with the great services that the Government has rendered to Belgium, has charged me to express to you its lively gratitude, and to request you to continue to exercise the executive power till the National Congress shall otherwise have provided for it."

The resignation was not signed by DE POTTER, as we have stated ; and the cause of the. vacillation of the Notables was explained next day in a letter from that celebrated man to the Assembly. It seems that DE POTTER and his colleagues had quarrelled on a point of constitutional law. They insisted that the Provisional Government could not legitimately retain its power, after the Notables, who had been chosen by the state, were assembled : DE POTTER contended that the act by which the Notables were chosen having emanated from the Provisional Go- vernment, it was not dependent on them, and was not called on to cease its functions until a permanent executive was chosen—that 'Via Notables were a legislative, and not a governing body, and cauld neither receive the resignation of the Provisional Govern- m flt nor refuse it. From argument, the majority of DE POTTER'S companions fell to abuse, and as they could not convict him of a paralogism, they accused him of treason ; he quitted their coun- cils in disgust, and they acted as they had previously resolved. DE HOOGVORST was accidentally absent from a meeting which seems to have been hastily called, and had not an opportunity of adding his signature to the document in which the resignation was tendered ; but he gave in his adhesion the next day. DE POTTER, on the same day, wrote to the Notables, explaining his principles, defending himself from the charge of ambition, and renouncing for ever all connexion with the Government. The Assembly agreed to acknowledge the communication of Mynheer DE HOOGVORST, and on that of DE POTTER they passed to the order of the day. What may be the result of the difference between the Notables and the most able of the patriots which the struggle of the Bel- gians has called into notice, we presume not to guess. The de- pression of DE POTTER, if permanent and effectual, must rernove a very great obstacle in the way of the Prince of ORANGE'S as- cent to the throne of Belgium ; and perhaps it is not too much to at- tribute the slight passdd on the republican chief to the Orange party. The Brussels papers contain two documents of considerable im- portance. The first is a communication from the Ambassadors of the five Powers, sitting in Congress in London, containing the resolu- tions to which they had come respecting the much-talked- of interfe- rence between the revolters and their enlightened King. The Stand- ard rsmarla with great justice, and we have long ago made the same remarks, how passing strange it is, that the transactions of our Foreign Office never reach the Blitish public but through the medium of a foreign newspaper. The protocol in which the resolu- tions are embodied is dated, it will be seen, so far back as the 4th of this month.

PROTOCOL OF THE CONFERENCE HELD AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE, LONDON, NOVEMBER 4, 1830.

"Present—The plenipotentiaries of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia.

"His Majesty, the King of the Netherlands,_having invited the courts of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, as parties to the treaties of Paris and Vienna, which constituted the kingdom of the Ne- therlands, to deliberate in council with him on the best means of putting. an end to the troubles which have broken out in his dominions, and the courts above mentioned having felt, even before they received this invita- tion, a lively desire to stop with the least possible delay the disorder and effusion of blood, have, through their ambassadors and ministers at the court of London, agreed on the following resolutions.

"1. According to section 5 of their protocol of November 15, 1813, they have invited the ambassador of his Majesty the King of the Nether- land, to join in their deliberations. "2. To accomplish their resolution to stop the effusion of blood, they are of opinion that there must be an entire cessation of hostilities on both sides.

"The conditions of this armistice, which would prejudge nothing re. lative to the questions, the solution of which the five Courts will have to facilitate, would be as follows :— "Hostilities on both sides shall entirely cease.

"The respective troops will have to retire reciprocally behind the line which, previously to the treaty of May 30, 1814, separated the posses.. sions of the Prince Sovereign of the United Provinces from those which were added to his territory to form the kingdom of the Netherlands by the said treaty of Paris, and by those of Pans and Vienna of 1815. • "The respective troops shall evacuate the places and the territory which

they actually occupy beyond the said line in the term of ten days. . "This armistice shall be proposed to his Majesty the King of the Nether. lands, through his Ambassador, present at the deliberations.

" The terms of this armistice shall be communicated in Belgium in the name of the five Courts.

(Signed) ESTERHAZY, BITLOW, TALLETRAND, MATUSZEWIC:i

ABERDEEN,

We would not notice on the absurdity, nor inquire to what le-- Ornate zealot it was due, of communicating this document in Belgium without saying to whom, were it not to point out that, even in the apparent fair dealing of this document, the five Powers jesuitically avoid recognizing the very power on whose be- half they pretend to mediate. The Provisional Government, to which, after all, it was sent, return a very respectful and sensible letter, in which they accept, provided they be reciprocally acted on, the terms of the armistice conditioned for ; adding, in order to re- move all ambiguity of phrase, that, by the "line" alluded to in the resolutions, they understand "the limits which, conformably to article 2 of the fundamental law of the Netherlands, separated the Northern Provinces from the Southern Provinces of the country, including the whole of the left bank of the Scheid." This accept- ance is dated the 10th, and was the last act of the Provisional Government as originally constituted. The latest letters from Antwerp announce, as certain, the fall of Venloo, and the taking prisoners of the Dutch garrison; it is also added, that Maestricht is on the eve of being evacuated by the Dutch. No specific motion has yet been made to the Belgian Notables with respect to the future government ; but they have come to a resolution that the Congress shall decide what shall be the form of the Government.

In the mean time, the Dutch, notwithstanding the demonstration of the blockade noticed last week, seem quite as anxious as the Belgians for the complete separation of the two countries. The mediation of the Allies, therefore, will be an easy task.