be disposed of in accordance with their varying interests or arbitrary caprices. We can appreciate the air of satisfaction, not to say pride, with which this experience was recorded and published. It was gratifying to the highest feelings of patriotism. To realize the importance of the facts thus elicited, it is necessary to consider briefly the nature of the European Political System, of which our able representative was so glad that we were not a member.

The Political System of Europe, as it existed at the time of Mr. Rush's residence in England, was the result of the political history of Europe for three centuries, beginning with the reign of Charles the Fifth, and ending with the Congress of Vienna. It is the product of its wars, treaties, dynastic changes, and advancing intelligence and civilization. In all these changes, one dominant idea has been kept always in view by European statesmen, as more important than any family interests or any changes of dynasty or form of government. This paramount object of regard, this central point of guidance, this first meridian of all political reckonings, is oftenest designated by the name of the "Balance of Power." Personal ambitions and family interests, war and peace, have been made subordi nate to this. The most elaborate treatises on public affairs have had for their object the elucidation of this subject, in its various bearings and consequences. To understand this subject, in its infinite complications and implications, and to be able to steer among them all a successful course of administration of affairs, made a man a statesman. Of this whole complex system of relations, obligations, and liabilities, the Balance of Power was so much the central principle, that the phrase is customarily used by writers to denote the whole Political System, including all other elements as subordinate.

Vattel's definition of a Balance of Power-"Such a disposi tion of things as that no one potentate or state shall be able absolutely to predominate and prescribe to others "-expresses rather the ostensible and praiseworthy object which ought to be aimed at, than the secret motives by which governments are commonly actuated, or the results actually attained by this great political system. The circle of nations who recog

nize this system are supposed to maintain an understanding among themselves, that no one among them can interfere with the essential rights of another among them, without exposing itself to the censure of the rest, and then to the danger of a counter interference and coalition for the redress of the wrong. Also, that no one nation ought to acquire such surpassing power as to be able to defy this censure, or to domineer at pleasure over any or all of the rest. The coalitions to curb the grasping ambition of Charles the Fifth, of Louis the Fourteenth, and of Napoleon Bonaparte, are instances of gigantic struggle and vast combination of strength for the preservation of the Balance of Power. The occasions, methods, and limitations, of this system have become a complex science, taxing the powers of the profoundest scholars. Its application to the ever varying exigencies created by the ambition of kings, the profligacy of their ministers, and the constantly shifting conditions of nations, has taxed to the utmost the sagacity of the wisest statesmen. It is a problem in history, which we shall not now attempt to solve, whether this theory of the Balance of Power, or the entire Political System of which it commonly stands as the exponent, has been a blessing to mankind. or a curse; whether it has prevented more wars than it has caused, or has mitigated rather than aggravated the severities of war; whether it has improved or injured the cause of liberty, and advanced or retarded the progress of civilization. There are not wanting able and weighty opinions on either side of the question.

After the overthrow of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna assumed the restoration of this great political system, and placed its control and conservation under the care of the Five Great Powers, as they were termed-Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, as a sort of Executive Committee, whose united determinations were to bind all the rest. The British Government, indeed, on technical grounds and for domestic reasons, declined to become in form a party to the so-called Holy Alliance. But it participated fully in all the negotiations, and approved all the arrangements then made, and has at all times maintained and relied upon the ad

justments then agreed upon. Its recent letter of remonstrance on behalf of Poland, is based upon the obligations of the Treaty of Vienna. The practical administration of the ma chinery so artistically arranged at Vienna, it must be confess ed, has partaken quite largely of the ordinary irregularities of human institutions. A man setting himself down to study that arrangement and anticipate its results in forty years' operation, would hardly bring out the actual state of things now existing in Europe. How it works in practice, we may learn, at least in part, from an eminent living writer, whose work is just now exciting great attention in the highest circles of Europe.

Mr. Kinglake devotes the second chapter of his History of the Crimean Campaign to a delineation of the Public Laws of Europe, which he terms the Supreme Usage, and which he treats from the English point of view, in a very original as well as very English manner. The opening paragraphs are as follows:

"The Supreme Law or Usage which forms the safeguard of Europe is not in a state so perfect and symmetrical that the elucidation of it will bring any ease or comfort to a mind accustomed to crave for well-defined rules of conduct. It is a rough and wild-grown system, and its observance can only be enforced by opin ion, and by the belief that it truly coincides with the interests of every power which is called upon to obey it; but practically, it has been made to achieve a fair portion of that security which sanguine men might hope to see resulting from the adoption of an international code. Perhaps under a system ideally formed for the safety of nations and for the peace of the world, a wrong done to one state would be instantly treated as a wrong done to all. But in the actual state of the world there is no such bond between nations. It is true that the law of nations does not stint the right of executing justice, and that any Power may either remon strate against a wrong done to another state, great or small, or may endeavor, if so it chooses, to prevent or redress the wrong by force of arms; but the duties of states in this respect are very far from being co-extensive with their rights.

"In Europe, all states except the five great Powers are exempt from the duty of watching over the general safety; and even a state which is one of the five great Powers is not practically under an obligation to sustain the cause of justice unless its perception of the wrong is reënforced by a sense of its own interests. Moreover, no state, unless it be combating for its very life, can be expected to engage in a war without a fair prospect of success. But when the three circumstances are present--when a wrong is being done against any state, great or small, when that wrong in its present or ulterior consequences happens to be injurious to one of the five great Powers, and finally, when the great Power so injured is

competent to wage war with fair hopes, then Europe is accustomed to expect that the great Power which is sustaining the hurt will be enlivened by the smart of the wound, and for its own sake, as well as for the public weal, will be ready to come forward in arms, or to labor for the formation of such leagues as may be needed for upholding the cause of justice. If a Power fails in this duty to itself and to Europe, it gradually becomes lowered in the opinion of mankind, and happily there is no historic lesson more true than that which teaches all rulers that a moral degradation of this sort is speedily followed by disasters of such a kind as to be capable of being expressed in arithmetic." pp. 36, 37.

"The obligation imposed upon a great state by this Usage is not a heavy yoke, for, after all, it does no more than impel a sovereign by fresh motives and by larger sanctions, to be watchful in the protection of his own interests. It quickens his sense of honor. It warns him that if he tamely stands witnessing a wrong which it is his interest and duty to redress, he will not escape with the reckoning which awaits him in his own dishonored country, but that he will also be held guilty of a great European defection, and that his delinquency will be punished by the reproach of nations, by their scorn and distrust, and, at last, perhaps, by their desertion of him in his hour of trial. But, on the other hand, the Usage assures a Prince that if he will but be firm in coming forward to redress a public wrong which chances to be collaterally hurtful to his own state, his cause will be singularly ennobled and strengthened by the acknowledgment of the principle that, although he is fighting for his own people, he is also fighting for every nation in the world which is interested in putting down the wrong-doer. Of course, neither this nor any other human law or usage can have any real worth except in proportion to the respect and obedience with which it is regarded; but, since the Usage exacts nothing from any state except what is really for its own good as well as for the general weal, it is very much obeyed, and is always respected in Europe." p. 40.

"To keep alive the dread of a just and avenging war, should be the care of every statesman who would faithfully labor to preserve the peace of Europe. It

is

a poor use of time to urge a king or an emperor to restrain his ambition and his covetousness, for these are passions eternal, always to be looked for, and always to be combatted. For such a prince, the only good bridle is the fear of war." p. 41.

It is only by a figure of speech that the workings of such a rickety machine as this are called Law. And yet they are held to impose a certain obligation upon such nations as can be held within the circle. And they often serve the Powers as convenient pretexts and apologies for interference in the affairs of others, whether right or wrong. Some instructive views of the practical operation of this system, in the case of what are called Minor Powers, may be gathered from a cursory examination of the history of Modern Greece. About forty years ago, the people of Greece, of their own accord and

by their own motion, threw off the intolerable yoke of Turkey, and declared themselves an independent nation. Thereupon, and forthwith, the Three Great Powers took the nation in charge, forbade the further attempts of Turkey to subdue them, and required of them to confine their country forever within certain narrow limits, to become a hereditary monarchy, and to choose a king for themselves from among the royal families of Europe, subject to the approval of the Three Powers. They also assumed the right of requiring the funding of the revolutionary debt, nominally of fourteen millions of dollars, although only five millions had reached the national treasury. In 1832, the Powers interfered again, creating another debt of ten millions, of which about one million went for roads and other beneficial objects, and the rest was absorb ed by the harpies of King Otho's court. In 1854, the debt had grown to sixty millions, and there was another interference of the Three Powers, resulting in a requisition that Greece should reserve annually 900,000 francs-nearly $200,000-for her creditors, out of a revenue barely reaching four millions per annum, in a country where material civilization is far in arrear. This requirement, after some years' delay, was com plied with for one year, and then followed a revolution. But Greece is still held by the bondage of this debt under the tutelage of the ever-present Three Powers, who allow no free choice to the people but to try over again the disastrous experiment so fully tried out in thirty years of unhappiness, of another hereditary dynasty, under a king subject to the ap proval of the Powers. And the millstone of a debt of sixty millions, for which Greece never received above one-tenth of the value, is still bound about her neck, and the yearly pay ment is to be coerced by the Powers, on penalty of war, and subjugation, and national extinction. Such is the working of the Political System of Europe, as organized by the Congress of Vienna, and administered by the Great Powers. Some American writers have spoken of the Holy Alliance as a thing of the past. Greece finds it a living Dominion, from whose grasp she as yet sees no possible way of escape. Perhaps some reflecting minds will trace out from this example an