mind; but from substantial personal bondage. Inhabitants of cities, before without privileges, placed in the consideration which belongs to that improved and connecting situation of social life. One of the most proud, numerous, and fierce bodies of nobility and gentry ever known in the world, arranged only in the foremost rank of free and generous citizens. Not one man incurred loss or suffered degradation. All, from the king to the day labourer, were improved in their condition. Every thing was kept in its place and order; but in that place and order every thing was bettered. To add to this happy wonder (this unheard of conjunction of wisdom and fortune,) not one drop of blood was spilled; no treachery; no outrage; no system of slander more cruel than the sword; no studied insults on religion, morals or manners; no spoil; no confiscation; no citizen beggared; none imprisoned; none exiled: the whole was effected with a policy, a discretion, an unanimity and secrecy, such as have never been before known on any occasion, but such wonderful conduct was reserved for this glorious conspiracy in favour of the true and genuine rights of man."e The party among the Polish magnates, opposed to the new constitution, formed, in 1792, a confederation at Targowice; and the empress of Russia, delivered from the Turkish war by the peace of Jassy, declared her resolution to support their resistance. The national diet prepared to sustain their own work, and for this purpose claimed the assistance of Prussia under the alliance of 1790. But another change had come over the fickle policy of the Prussian cabinet. Frederick William II had become reconciled with Russia and Austria. His views were now turned towards concerting with them the means of suppressing the French revolution; and he answered that the establishment * Burke's Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs. Works, vol. vi. p. 243, ed. 1815. § 2. Second Partition of Poland, 1793. § 3. Third Partition, 1795. of the constitution of the 3d May, 1791, being posterior to the treaty of alliance, the casus fœderis had not arisen, especially as he had never approved this change, but on the contrary had forseen its unfortunate results.f Poland, thus abandoned by the only ally, on whose aid she might rely, could not long continue an unequal resistance against the overwhelming power of Russia. This resistance became still more hopeless when her frontiers were invaded by the troops of that very ally. The consequence was the second partition of Poland between Russia and Prussia, which took place in 1793, and was confirmed in the diet of Grodno under the influence of the terror inspired by the presence of Russian cannon and Russian bayonets. The insurrection of 1794 under Kosciusko was followed by the third and last partition between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, embracing the remaining territories of Poland, and bringing in contact the frontiers of the three great military monarchies, by whom her destruction had been worked, in conjunction with her own factious and venal sons.g A celebrated political writer has condemned this iniquitous spoliation, not merely as a departure from those rules of justice, by which the European community had been previously governed, and by the observance of which the independence even of the smallest states had been secured from the encroachments of the most powerful monarchies, but as a misapplication of the principles of the balancing system itself, by means of which that security had been so long enjoyed. This writer compares the political balance of power among nations to that system of checks and balances among the different orders of the same states, by f Lettre du Roi de Prusse au Roi de Pologne, Segur, tom. iii. p. 259. Pieces Justificatives. Schoell, tom. xiv. pp. 112–169. Rau Segur, tom. ii. pp. 132–175. mer, Polens Untergang, Historisches Taschenbuch, tom. iii. pp. 474–537. which its constitution is preserved in healthy action under ordinary circumstances, but which becomes the source of fatal disorders when the different bodies of the state instead of uniting to promote the public good, combine in measures injurious to the common weal. In the same manner it may happen in the great society of nations that those forces which ought to be combined to protect the weak against the powerful, are united for the oppression of those whose security consists in the common interest which all have in preventing the aggrandizement of any one state at the expense of another. The first partition of Poland was attempted to be reconciled with the general principle of the balancing system, by dividing the territory taken from the republic among the several parties in such proportions as would leave their relative forces the same as before. By this sophism the partitioning powers sought to palliate the evil consequences of an example which contributed more than any thing which had occurred in the intercourse of nations, to shake the public confidence in that system, hitherto found efficacious in preventing such flagrant acts of injustice. "What rendered," says Von Genz, "the partition of Poland so much more injurious to the great interest of Europe than many other recent acts of violence, still more iniquitous in their conception and execution, was the fact that the injury arose from that very quarter whence the great society of nations had been taught to look for safety and protection. Separate leagues between several states had been hitherto commonly resorted to, as a protecting barrier against the power and ambition of a single oppressor; the world now saw with consternation, the possibility of such confederacies being formed to perpetrate those very acts of spoliation which had been hitherto prevented by similar means. The impression made by this unexpected discovery was the more painful, as the inventors of this evil project, in the whole course of their enterprize invoked the principles of the balancing system as their guide and polar star, and actually followed them, so far as circumstances would permit, in their division of the spoil, and whilst they inflicted the most fatal wounds upon the spirit and very existence of this system borrowed its external forms, and even its technical language. Corruptio optimi pessima: To behold this noble system, which the wisdom of the European community had devised for its security and welfare, thus perverted, was an odious spectacle; but the evil character of the deed was more fully brought to light by its disastrous consequences. The cause of public justice was every where betrayed and deserted. A rabble of loquacious sophists, who at this time began to shake the foundations of social order in France, when the mighty of the earth, not inflamed with a tumult of passion, but with deliberate strides and systematic purpose, had broken into the sanctuary of public law, made this unhappy incident the pretext for indecent mockery of the most sacred political maxims. Even the enlightened and virtuous part of mankind became infected with the contagion of doubt; unmindful that the purest fountains may become corrupted, that the most-healing waters may be poisoned; unmindful that the most sensible blow which the federative system of Europe could receive, should only summon us in a more pressing manner to strengthen the foundations of the edifice, and to devise better contrived precautions to prevent a repetition of similar evils; they abandoned themselves to a comfortless distrust in the efficacy of political maxims, or to systematic indifference. How much this pernicious disposition of mind must have contributed to facilitate the practice of iniquity, and the spread of desolation, when at last came the evil days, in which all right was trampled under foot, and all order fell into ruin, cannot have escaped the notice of any attentive observer. "Whilst the partition of Poland was the first occcurence, which by a misapplication of the forms of the balancing system, introduced extensive disorder into the affairs of Europe, so also it was one of the first by which the relax The ation of public spirit and of a lively interest in the common of the Bavari The central states of continental Europe continued to 4. Question enjoy the blessings of peace under the treaties concluded an Succession, at Hubertsburg in 1763, with the single exception of the 1778. short and almost bloodless war of the Bavarian succession, 1778. This incident was terminated in 1779 by the peace of Teschen, under the mediation and guarantee of France and Russia. As this treaty renewed and confirmed the treaties of Westphalia, it became the pretext for the future interference of Russia in the internal affairs of Germany; although the German public jurists have contested the right on the ground that the empire had not yet acceded to the treaty of Teschen at the time when the guarantee of the Empress Catherine II was given, and had not required her mediation and guarantee. The designs of the Emperor Joseph II, upon Bavaria having been renewed in 1785, by the proposed exchange of Belgium for the Electorate, Frederick II formed a league, under the name of the Fürstenbund, to which the electors of Saxony, Menz, Hesse, and b Genz, Fragmente aus der neuisten Geschichte des politischer Gleichgenichts in Europa, Schriften, Band iv. §§ 51–59. |