restrictions on their separate accumulations; so that whatever®, might be their jealousy of each other's power when that power began to expand itself, yet the means of aggrandizement received, no preventive check from any pre-arranged definitions of terri tory. From the first Punic war to the reduction of the world; under the Roman yoke, if the sound of this maxim was sometimes; heard in declamation or in the lectures of political philosophy, it seems to have had little or no existence in the practice of states.

The balance of power, as now understood and professed to be acted upon, is almost wholly a creature of modern politics. The contiguity of opulent and extensive states, the quick intelligence which each obtains of the operations of the rest, the ostensible nature of military preparations, the dispersion and interchange of accredited organs and resident ambassadors, the jealous ac-. curacy of frontier lines, the diffusion and frequency of public, ordinances, solemn pacts, and federal rites, which bind independence in willing chains, the existence of a code of paramount, law borrowed from nature, and accepted by all because dictated, by none, have created an intercourse, a vicinity, a community, between all the states within the more immediate sphere of each other's influence, that have at length brought out into, full activity the principle of the balance of power.

It is evident, however, that even in modern times the practice. has not kept pace with the theory; and that although a progressive illumination has afforded a complete vision of the perfections of this system, Europe has as yet advanced but a little way towards a real and solid application of its principles, Nor is any profound political knowledge necessary to explain the causes of this failure. They lie upon the surface of common experience. A selfish ignorance has betrayed the general cause, and the single object cherished by every state, of enlarging its geographical limits and nominal sway, has made it forget the true sources of national perpetuity and moral grandeur. The broad reason of the failure, in short, is this, that mankind and especially governments, have not yet been ripe enough in honesty to carry into effect a system of particular sacrifices for a common benefit. But though a pure feeling of solicitude for general tranquillity can scarcely be expected to start of itself into being, and become the character at any one epoch of all, or of a prevailing majority of all, the governments of Europe; yet it might reasonably enter into the speculations of sober philosophy to expect that a day might come, (that day, we trust is come), when a general exhaustion, the effect of continual wars, might compel the nations of this civilized portion of the globe seriously and sincerely to reflect upon the means of securing a duration of

repose sufficient to repair their wasted stamina and prevent an irrecoverable relapse. This has often constrained particular states in the height of their aggrandisement to invite peace, and to listen to terms of accommodation below the pride of their external success and airy elevation. But hitherto the lessons of adversity seem never to have been sufficiently severe and general to dissolve the dreams of ambition and bring monarchs to confer together in their sober senses. The truth is, that where at any time the exertions of confederated states have succeeded in repelling the aggressions of an overbearing power, if enough has been obtained to satisfy the immediate demands of glory, and the sword has been sheathed with honour, the balance has been considered as restored; and it seems scarcely ever to have occurred to the parties to the conflict, that it is not the nature of a true balance of power to manifest its existence by the unceasing efforts of an active opposition, which is only another phrase for a perpetual state of war, but to maintain itself rather by reciprocal displays of strength, and by the attitude and apparatus of means and resource. If we are always to be fighting for the balance of power, it deserves only to be considered as a. pretence for legalizing bloodshed, and as cherishing the elements of actual war in the bosom of speculative security.

To be satisfied how little for the most part the treaties of modern Europe have conduced to a solid equilibrium of power, we need only attend to the principal treaties which terminated the several contests in which the ambition of Louis XIV. engaged him. From almost every one of these treaties, though professedly adopting the balance of power as its object, France came out with a fresh addition to its means of endangering and unsettling the other states of Europe. The restless ambition of Louis XIV. prepared and disposed the country for the convulsions which have since taken place; it sowed the revolutionary seeds in the interior distress occasioned by a destructive waste of wealth; but it also furnished in the great and important annexations of territory which his arms and successful policy had acquired, such an engine of physical strength as, under the impulse of the revolutionary fever, overturned not merely the balance of power in Europe, but, except in this island, almost effaced every trace of political independence.

During a dark and portentous period of sanguinary despotism and triumphant wrong, the sword has traced upon the tablet of Europe that lesson for its future conduct which Providence has in a wonderful manner matured the means of carrying into practice. France doubly conquered is at the feet of her injured and insulted antagonists; the horse and the rider have been overthrown, and the wreck of Pharoah's host was scarcely more com

plete than that which has revenged upon a perfidious and remorseless people the wrongs of bleeding humanity.

The great and desperate obstacle to the balance of power in Europe has thus been removed. The Gaul no longer dictates, or throws his sword into the scale; but with impotent ferocity. and savage submission bends to the yoke which he has been striving so long to impose upon others. The simple reduction of the physical power of France within its proper limits would, if nothing else be done, be a nearer advance towards a real balance of power in Europe, than all the treaties of nations, the results of triple and quadruple alliances for these two centuries past, have been capable of producing. Whether such will be really the fruit of this stupendous struggle must depend upon the use made of the opportunity which it has afforded. Whether the Allies have pared down the ascendancy of France to the level required to constitute a substantial equipoise among the great states of Europe; or, secretly operated upon by fear of each other, or by whatever principles of mistaken moderation, they have left her the fibres of that rank luxuriance of power for which no assignable border can suffice, will be soon seen. But of this we are sure, that no reliance can be placed on the lesson, awful as it has been, which France, revolutionary France, has received. Neither mellowed nor me liorated by misfortune, she sees no angel in the storm which has overwhelmed her; in the vengeance which has overtaken her, she hears no spiritual thunder; in all these fearful changes, she feels no invisible hand; she dies and gives no sign. Jacobin France expires with an insolent levity mixing with her mortal struggles; ―with her atheistical crest erect against Providence, she curses God and dies.*

* We cannot resist the pleasure of quoting Mr. Burke's sentiments on the fate of religion in jacobin France. "In the Revolution of France two sorts of men were principally concerned in giving a character and determination to its pursuits; the philosophers and the politicians. They took different ways, but they met in the same end. The philosophers had one predominant object, which they pursued with a fanatical fury, that is, the utter extirpation of religion. To that every question of empire was subordinate. They had rather domineer in a parish of Atheists, than rule over a Christian world. Their temporal ambition was wholly subservient to their proselytizing spirit, in which they were not exceeded by Mahomet himself.

"They who have made but superfical studies in the Natural History of the human mind, have been taught to look on religious opinions as the only cause of enthusiastic zeal and sectarian propagation, But there is no doctrine whatever, on which men can warm, that is not capable of the very same effect. The social nature of man impels him to propagate his principles, as much as physical impulses urge him to propagate his kind. The passions give zeal and vehemence. The understanding bestows design and system. The whole man moves under the discipline of his opinions. Religion is among the most powerful causes of enthusiasm. When any thing concerning it becomes an object of much meditation, it cannot be indifferent fo the mind. They who do not love religion, hate it. The rebels to God perfectly

To have conquered the principle of Jacobinism, if conquered it radically is, is greatly to have cleared the way to the balance of power. But more, much more, must be done. So naturally predominant is France, by her physical resources and her geographical position, that nothing can secure Europe against her for any length of time, but a vast reduction of her means.* Whether the late compression of her frontier is sufficient;

abhor the Author of their being. They hate him "with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their soul, and with all their strength." He never presents himself to their thoughts, but to menace and alarm them. They cannot strike the sun out of Heaven, but they are able to raise a smouldering smoke that obscures him from their own eyes. Not being able to revenge themselves on God, they have a delight in vicariously defacing, degrading, torturing, and tearing in pieces his image in man. Let no one judge of them by what he has conceived of them, when they were not incorporated, and had no lead. They were then only pas sengers in a common vehicle. They were then carried along with the general motion of religion in the community, and, without being aware of it, partook of its influence. In that situation, at worst their nature was left free to counterwork their principles. They despaired of giving any very general currency to their opinions. They considered them as a reserved privilege for the chosen few. But when the possibility of dominion, lead, and propagation presented themselves, and that the ambition, which before had so often made them hypocrites, might rather gain than lose by a daring avowal of their sentiments, then the nature of this infernal spirit, which has "evil for its good" appeared in its full perfection. Nothing indeed but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man. out reading the speeches of Vergniaux, Français of Nantz, Isnard, and some others of that sort, it would not be easy to conceive the passion, rancour, and malice of their tongues and hearts. They worked themselves up to a perfect phrenzy against religion and all its professors. They tore the reputation of the Clergy to pieces by their infuriated declamations and invectives, before they lacerated their bodies by their massacres. This fanatical atheism left out, we omit the principal feature in the French Revolution, and a principal consideration with regard to the effects to be expected from a peace with it.

With

"The other sort of men were the politicians. To them who had little or not at all reflected on the subject, religion was in itself no object of love or hatred. They disbelieved it, and that was all. Neutral with regard to that object, they took the side which in the present state of things might best answer their purposes. - They soon found that they could not do without the philosophers; and the philosophers soon made them sensible, that the destruction of religion was to supply them with means of conquest first at home, and then abroad. The philosophers were the active internal agitators, and supplied the spirit and principles: the second gave the practical direction. Sometimes the one predominated in the composition, sometimes the other. The only difference between them was in the necessity of concealing the general design for a time, and in their dealing with foreign nations; the fanaticks going straight forward and openly, the politicians by the surer mode of zigzag. In the course of events this, among other causes, produced fierce and bloody contentions between them. But at the bottom they thoroughly agreed in all the objects of ambition and irreligion, and substantially in all the means of promoting these ends." (P, 160-163.)

* In the report of the Commissioners at Vienna, who were appointed to examine whether, after the events which had followed the return of Buonaparte to France, any new declaration (other than that of March, 1813), would be necessary, we find these words "It is no longer the question to maintain the Treaty of Paris, but to make it over again. The Powers find themselves placed in exactly the same situation towards France, as on the 31st of March, 1814."

whether she is made to sacrifice enough of her ill-gotten territory for the common cause of Europe, is with us matter of serious doubt; but no doubt can exist of the necessity of making fast the doors of the rest of Europe against her ambition. To leave her surrounded with petty states, would be in practical language to tell her, that whenever it may suit her convenience, she is at liberty to disturb the world, and undo all that has been done. Nothing that can invite aggression by its imbecility must exist near her frontiers. Without the plan of annexation which has been adopted by the allies, it would be talking absolute nonsense to say, that any thing effectual could have been done towards the balance of power in Europe. There is no security without counterpoise, and no counterpoise without consolidation. Little states in immediate contact with a dominant and aspiring power live by sufferance. Interposed between two potent neighbours, instead of being a barrier of separation, they are at once the arena of the contest, and the prize for which the contest is maintained. Their neutrality vacillates until it falls into the lap of the stoutest, adding strength to strength, and purchasing a degraded existence by becoming the agent of spoliation and oppression. Thus do these petty governments supply the materials of a perpetual disturbance of the just equilibrium of power in Europe; they are a kind of loose and shifting ballast, running to the side which already preponderates, and making bad worse. Something more solid and compact must fill up these spaces, and to the mobility of ambition something more of a plenum must oppose itself.

The nations seem at last to have learned this profitable lesson; and while reviewers and debaters have been hurling their hypocritical anathemas at the moral injustice of their proceeding, the Congress, with what intermixture of self partiality we shall not inquire, because it is neither necessary nor possible to be known, have been wisely proceeding with their plan of giving permanency, solidity, and security, to the different estates of Europe. The larger masses of which it is in future to be composed will be less easily put in motion, and compacter bodies in closer contiguity will yield less opportunity for sudden irruption, and the primary movements of hostility. But the question will still occur,Is this allowable on the principle of general equity? Are independent nations to be robbed of their political existence for the sake of this balance of power?

It is a long established maxim among the nations of this quarter of the globe, the happy fruit of civilization, grounded on the strong conclusions of experience, that while every state may justly challenge an independent enjoyment of its own laws and constitution, it owes submission to a general law of convenience,