tee to France all her possessions. The Treaty of Paris of February 10, 1763, between France, Great Britain, and Spain,* concluded after seven years' war, lessened the influence of France, lowered Spain to the position of a second-rate power, and placed British influence in North America in a condition of absolute safety.

After the conclusion of this Treaty, the distribution of power in Europe was greatly altered. Prussia, by the energy of her rulers, had become a kingdom of no mean importance. Russia, hitherto mainly composed of Asiatic tribes, became a European power. England had risen to the position of a great State. But again a source of disturbance appeared in the heart of Europe in consequence of the partition of Poland in 1772. And a revolution arose in the British colonies in North America of a formidable character, which ended in the creation in 1776 † of the United States of America. The war between Great Britain and her American

*The Treaty of Paris effected considerable transfers of territories. France ceded to Great Britain her possessions in Canada, Nova Scotia, and the islands on the St. Lawrence, French subjects being allowed to fish on the coast of Newfoundland. Great Britain ceded to France St. Pierre. The boundaries between France and Great Britain were fixed in the midst of the river Mississippi. Great Britain restored to France Guadeloupe and Martinique, and France ceded to Great Britain Grenada. Great Britain ceded to Spain Cuba, and Spain ceded to Great Britain Florida.

+ In the month of July, 1775, a Confederacy was formed of "the thirteen United Colonies," and on July 4, 1776, the Congress issued a proclamation whereby they declared" the United States of America free and independent," with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

Colonies was the more prolonged and severe in consequence of the alliance contracted by France with the American Republic. And it was during that conflict that Neutral Powers first assumed a firm attitude of resistance to belligerent rights.†

Hitherto France had been content to live under a feeble and retrograde Government. But the fermentation created by the extension of Jansenism, and the issue of the Bull Unigenitus; the agitation connected with the calling of the States-General; the alliance with Austria, formed by the marriage of the Dauphin with the Archduchess Marie Antoinette, and the disordered state of French finances, gave rise to a revolution in Paris in July, 1789, which became the immediate cause of a protracted European war. During the eventful time, which lasted from 1789 to 1814, the balance of power, so sedulously established by the Treaties of Westphalia and Utrecht, completely broke down; the old Republics of Holland, Venice, and Genoa

"Traité d'amitié et de commerce entre le Roi de France et les Provinces Unies de l'Amerique à Paris, le 6 Février, 1778;" “Traité d'alliance eventuelle et defensive entre le Roi de France et les Provinces unies de l'Amerique à Paris, le 6 Février, 1778."

+ On the question of neutral rights at that period, see Regulations of the King of France on neutral navigation in time of war, July 26, 1778; Declaration of the Empress of Russia, February 28, 1780; Declaration of Sweden to the Belligerent Powers, July 21, 1780; Maritime Convention between Russia and Denmark, July 7, 1780; Maritime Convention between Sweden and Russia, July 21, 1789, and between Prussia and Russia, May 8, 1781. See also the Earl of Liverpool's paper on the Contest of Great Britain in respect to Neutral Nations, 1785.

were destroyed, the Houses of Bourbon in Spain and Naples were overthrown. And temporary Treaties were concluded at Campo-Formio in 1797, at Luneville in 1801, at Amiens in 1802,* at Presburg in 1805, at Tilsit in 1807, and at Vienna in 1809, none of which settled permanently any question of public Law. Once again, Neutral States were exacerbated by the operation of belligerents; the British Orders in Council and the Decrees of Paris and Berlin being found exceedingly oppressive. Irritated by the number of American vessels captured by both parties, a war ensued between Great Britain and the United States of America, which was concluded by the Treaty of Ghent of December 24, 1814. When the Congress of Vienna assembled in 1815,† the map of Europe had in many respects to be reconstructed. Would that the people

*The Treaty of Amiens was signed March 27, 1802, by Joseph Bonaparte for the French Republic, Lord Cornwallis for Great Britain, the Chevalier d'Azara for Spain, and R. I. Schimmelpenninck for the Batavian Republic.

The Congress of Vienna was opened in 1814, and the conferences were not suspended by the return to France of Napoleon in March, 1815. The final Act was signed July 9, 1815. In that Congress Austria was represented by the Prince of Metternich and the Baron de Wissenberg; Spain, by Don Pierre Gomez de Labrador; France, by the Prince de Talleyrand-Périgord, the Duke de Dalberg, Comte de Latour du Pin, and the Comte Alexis de Noailles; Great Britain, by the Viscount Castlereagh, Duke of Wellington, Earl of Clancarty, Earl Cathcart, and Lord Stewart; Portugal and Brazil, by the Comte de Palmella, Antoine de Saldanha de Gama, and Don Joachim Lobo da Silveira; Prussia, by the Prince de Hardenberg and Baron de Humboldt; Russia, by the Prince de Rasoumoffski, Comte de Stackelberg, and Comte de Nesselrode; and Sweden and Norway, by the Comte de Loewenhielm.

whose interests were so directly concerned had been in some manner consulted. The main desire, however, of the assembled representatives was to restore as far as possible the status quo ante, and to give compensations to the despoiled Sovereigns by dividing any available territory among them. By the Treaties concluded at Vienna in 1815, Malta was ceded to England, and Genoa to Sardinia. The Italian Peninsula was broken up into many little States, more or less under the influence of Austria. A German Confederation was formed. Sweden and Norway were united, as well as Holland and Belgium, each under one sovereignty. The Swiss Confederation was constituted, and the partition of Poland was confirmed, whilst the territory of France was reduced to its original dimensions.

The partition of Poland could not well be ignored by such a Congress, all the more that it had been regarded as a most flagrant violation of the sovereignty of States. Poland was, at all times, weak and powerless.

With a people restless and turbulent, and her finances always in disorder, without a middle class, with a limited commerce, and with rulers ignorant and narrow minded, Poland had no element of stability within herself, to resist intrigues and opposition from within or from without. The Diet, in which any single member had a right, by his veto, to stop and nullify its proceedings, was at the mercy of any one who aimed at its subversion. It is not clear

whether Maria Theresa of Austria, Catherine II. of Russia, or Frederick II. of Prussia was the first to propose the dismemberment of Poland; but overtures to this effect were made in 1770, and the act was consummated in 1772* by the sudden invasion of the country by the allied troops of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. At the Congress of Vienna these Powers came to demand an official recognition of their act of spoliation, and they obtained it to the full. A new kingdom of Poland was indeed established, guaranteed by Russia, and Cracow was constituted a Republic, guaranteed by Austria; but in 1832 the kingdom of Poland became an integral part of the Russian Empire, and in 1846 Cracow was incorporated with Austria. At the conclusion of the Congress of Vienna, in September, 1815, Austria, Prussia, and Russia concluded a Holy Alliance, by which the three Sovereigns undertook to regulate their politics according to the dictates of religion. And to that Treaty, the accession of several other States was afterwards given.† The Prince Regent of Great Britain, however, refused to accede to the same, not so much on account of its

*The first dismemberment was made by Treaties between Austria and Russia; Prussia and Russia, July 25, 1772; the second dismemberment, by a declaration signed at St. Petersburg, between Austria and Russia, and by Treaty between Prussia and Russia in 1795.

† Among those who acceded to the Holy Alliance were the King of Saxony on May 2, 1817; Würtemburg, August 17, 1816; Switzer. land, accepted by Russia on May 7; and by Prussia on September 10, 1817. The Hanseatic towns acceded to it in 1817; Sardinia, June 8, 1816; the Netherlands, September 26, 1815.