Independent Journal, Or, The General Advertiser

The Emperor of Germany, steady to his system of exploring every possible source of wealth and happiness for his subjects, is just now urging a claim for a share of the Dutch East India trade, which, he contends, the Austrian Netherlands are entitled to. In order to establish the justice of his pretensions, he has ordered M. de Rancourt to draw up a memoir upon the subject. The orders have been executed, and M. de Rancourt has published his work, in which he has animadverted with great force on the Hollanders, in continuing to hinder the inhabitants of the Austrian Netherlands from carrying on the East India trade.

This author has not rested his argument on natural right alone, his reasoning is founded on the force of public treaties. Among others, he pretends, that the second article of the treaty of peace, concluded at Fontainebleau, the 8th of November, 1785, between his Imperial Majesty and the States-General of the United Provinces, expressing in the clearest terms that all stipulations of the treaty of Munster shall be preserved, except such as may be annulled by this treaty, the public rights of the two nations, he insists therefore, ought in future, to be ascertained from the treaty of Munster of 1648, and that of Fontainebleau of 1785, and as, in the latter, no mention whatever was made of the commerce to India, it is incontestable that in whatever relates to that, reference must be had to the treaty of Munster, where it is provided, that, "in respect to the navigation to the East Indies, the Spaniards shall retain it in the same manner they have done hitherto; and, as to the West-Indies, the subjects of each power respectively shall refrain from navigating to any fortified places, castles, and forts possessed by the other power." But, demands the writer, has Holland the exclusive sovereignty of Asia, Africa, and America; or do all the castles, forts, and strong holds, situate in the Indies, belong to Holland?