plained of, or by other states, or by both. It is an appeal to them. It calls for their opinion. The difference is, that in that case nothing of proof is given; no opinion regularly made known. "The example of Sweden is alone sufficient to show the influence which treaties, the acts of nations, may be expected to have over the subjects of the several nations, and how far the expedient in question deserves the character of a weak one, or the proposal for employing and trusting to it, that of a visonary proposal. "The war commenced by the king of Sweden against Russia, was deemed by his subjects, or at least a considerable part of them, offensive, and as such, contrary to the constitution established by him with the concurrence of the states. Hence a considerable part of the army threw up their commissions or refused to act; and the consequence was, the king was obliged to retreat from the Russian frontier and call a diet. "This was under a government, commonly, though not truly, supposed to be changed from a limited monarchy, or rather aristocracy, to a despotic monarchy. There was no act of any recognized and respected tribunal to guide and fix the opinion of the people. The only ducument they had to judge from was a manifesto of the enemy, couched in terms such as resentment would naturally dictate, and therefore none of the most conciliating;-a document which had no claim to be circulated, and of which the circulation, we may be pretty well assured, was prevented as much as it was in the power of the utmost vigilance of the government to prevent it. "After a certain time, in putting the refractory state under the ban of Europe. "There might, perhaps, be no harm in regulating as a last resource, the contingent to be furnished by the several states for enforcing the decrees of the court. But the necessity for the employment of this resource would, in all human probability, be superseded for ever by having re course to the much more simple and less burthensome expedient of introducing into the instrument by which such court was instituted, a clause guarantying the liberty of the press in each state, in such sort, that the diet might find no obstacle to its giving, in every state, to its decrees, and to every paper whatever which it might think proper to sanction with its signature, the most extensive and nulimited circulation."c There is a striking resemblance between these "rêves d'un homme de bien," and the projects of perpetual peace suggested by Saint Pierre and Rousseau.d This proposition of Bentham to abolish war forever between the nations of Europe, is the more remarkable as it was prepared just before the breaking out of a war, the most destructive in its consequences, and attended with the most flagrant violations of the positive law of nations of any which has occurred in modern times. The only guarantee which he proposes for the preservation of perpetual peace is the formation of a general league of European states, the lays of which were to be enacted by a common legislature and carried into effect by a common judicature, but without providing any means for preventing this league from falling under the exclusive influence and control of its more powerful members. Experience has sufficiently demonstrated the difficulty of reconciling such corporate alliances with the rights and independence of each separate nation, and especially those of states of the second order. The right of perpetual supervision and interference, which these alliances involve as a necessary means of effecting their object, has been hitherto found too liable to abuse to warrant its being incorporated without danger into the international code. The cases where such interference has been allowed in or c Works of Jeremy Bentham now first collected under the superintendence of his executor, John Bowring, Part 8, pp. 537-554, London, 1839. d See Part Second, § 17. der to preserve the peace of Europe constitute exceptions. to a general rule of the most sacred and salutary nature, that by which the independence even of the smallest state ought to be respected by the greatest, as essential to the general security of all and to the maintenance of the ba lance of power on which that security depends. HISTORY OF THE MODERN LAW OF NATIONS. PART FOURTH. HISTORY OF THE LAW OF NATIONS IN EUROPE AND principles of in the War of THE first war of the French revolution originated in the § 1. Applicaapplication by the allied powers of the principle of armed tion of the intervention to the internal affairs of France for the purpose Intervention of checking the progress of her revolutionary principles French and the extension of her military power. That this was revolution. the avowed motive of the powers allied in the continental war of 1792 will be apparent from an examination of historical documents, and as such this example furnishes a strong admonition against attempting to incorporate into the international code a principle so indefinite and so peculiarly liable to abuse in its practical application. The previous history of Europe had furnished numerous cases of intervention by European states in the affairs of each other, where the interests and security of the intervening powers were supposed to be immediately affected by the transactions of other nations. Such were the interventions of the Catholic and Protestant powers in favour of the adherents of their religious faith during the wars growing out of the 1792. Reformation, and the various confederacies formed to check the undue aggrandizement, first of the house of Austria and subsequently of the house of Bourbon, threatening the general security by disturbing the balance of European power. But the wars of the French revolution involved, in the opinion of the allied powers and those public jurists by whom their cause was supported, both imminent danger to the social order of Europe by the propagation of the revolutionary principles of France, and to the balance of power by the undue extension of her dominion. § 2. Origin of The National Assembly had included in the general abothe War in lition of feudal tenures and tythes, the possessions of the German lay and ecclesiastical princes in the province of Alsace, of which the sovereignty was ceded to France by the treaty of Westphalia, with a reservation of the rights of private property and jurisdiction. Complaints were made to the French government on the part of the states of the empire, and a decree of the National Assembly was passed, on the 28th Octobor, 1790, authorizing the king to negotiate for a pecuniary indemnity to the claimants. This. offer being refused, the matter was brought by the Emperor Leopold II before the diet; which pronounced its conclusum on the 10th December, 1791, by which the Emperor was invited to maintain the rights and possessions of the states of the empire against the usurpations of France; the claimants were declared entitled to the aid of the empire; the protection of the powers guarantees of the peace of Westphalia was invoked, and an armament decreed. This conclusum was ratified by the Emperor, who again applied for redress in a letter dated the 3d December, 1791, and addressed to Louis XVI. The reply of the king of the French dated the 15th February, 1792, renewed the previous offer to treat on the basis of a pecuniary indemnity, and declined the demand of the re-establishment of the status quo as incompatible with the French constitution; but proposed to extend the indemnity to the arrearages of revenues, due to the German princes, since the decree of |