III. Anglo-American Diplomacy and the Belgian Indemnities Controversy 1836–42

Abstract

The ripening of the Anglo-American friendship in the first half of the nineteenth century was truly an evolutionary process, but most observers agree that in the diplomatic sphere the significant aspects of that early rapprochement took place about the time of the Webster–Ashburton agreement. One previously unknown factor involved in this development centred on British and American cooperation in the Belgian indemnification dispute in the late thirties and forties. This struggle by several major powers aimed at receiving indemnities from the newly created state for property damages incurred during the Belgian revolution of 1830 in Antwerp.