To Mr. Julian Harney, Editor of The Northern Star, Secretary of the Fraternal Democrats Society, London

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Brussels, February 28, 1848

You already know of the glorious revolution which has just been carried out in Paris.

We have to communicate to you that, as a result of this important event, the Democratic Association has initiated here a peaceful but vigorous agitation, to obtain through the ways proper to Belgian political institutions the advantages which the French people have won.

The following resolutions have been passed, with enthusiastic acclaim :

1. The Democratic Association will hold meetings every evening and the public will be admitted;

2. An address will be sent in the name of the Association to the provisional government of France, with the aim of expressing our warm feelings for the revolution of February 24;

3. An address will be presented to the municipal council of Brussels, inviting it to maintain public peace and to avoid all bloodshed by organising the municipal forces generally composed of the civil guard, that is to say, the bourgeois who are armed in normal circumstances, and the artisans who can be armed in abnormal times, according to the laws of the country. Arms will thus be entrusted equally to the middle class and the working class.

We will inform you as often as possible of the measures we shall take later, and of our progress.

We hope that you will soon succeed, on your side, in having the People’s Charter passed as a law of your country, and that it will serve you in making further progress.

Finally, we invite you; in this important crisis, to keep in frequent communication with us, and to transmit to us all news of your country of a nature to exercise a favourable effect on the Belgian people.

(Signatures of Committee Members follow)