After a day's peaceful drifting with the river's current, they reached the fort of Lillo, where, _more majorum_, as night was falling, they prudently dropped anchor, having a due sense of the danger that might accrue "from running down a continent in the dark." There was, besides, a feeling of high-souled pride in anchoring within sight, under the guns, as it were, of the Dutch fort--the insolent Dutch, whom they, with some aid from France--as the Irishman said of his marriage, for love, and a trifle of money--had driven from their country; and, although the fog rendered everything invisible, and the guns were spiked, still the act of courage was not disparaged; and they fell to, and sang the Brabançon, and drank Flemish beer till bed-time.
Happy and patriotic souls! little did you know, that amid your dreams of national greatness, some half-dozen imps of Dutch middies were painting out the magnificent tricolor streaks that adorned your good craft, and making the whole one mass of dirty black.
Such was the case, however; and when day broke, those brilliant emblems of Belgian independence had vanished, and in their place a murky line of pitch now stood.
Homeward they bent their course, sadder and wiser men; and, to their credit be it spoken, having told their sorrows to their sage minister, they have lived a life of happy retirement, and never strayed beyond the peaceful limits of the Antwerp basin.
Far be from me the unworthy object of drawing before the public gaze the blissful and unpretending service, that shuns the noontide glitter of the world's applause, and better loves the quiet solitude of their own unobtrusive waters; and had they thus remained, nothing would have tempted me to draw them from their obscurity. But alas! national ambition has visited even the seclusion of this service. Not content with coasting voyages, some twelve miles down their muddy river--not satisfied with lording it over fishing smacks and herring wherries, this great people have resolved on becoming a maritime power in blue water, and running a race of rivalry with England, France, and Russia; and to it they have set in right earnest.
They began by purchasing a steam-vessel, which happens to turn out on such a scale of size, as to be inadmissible into any harbour they possess. By dint of labour, time, cost, and great outlay, they succeeded, after four months, in getting her into dock. But alas! if it took that time to admit her, it takes six months to let her out again; and, when out, what are they to do with her?