supreme tribunal of the empire was qualified by a stipulation in the treaty of Osnabruck, that in all cases arising out of religious matters between Protestants and Catholics, the controversy should be determined by an equal number of judges selected from both confessions.

The same course was pursued in the Aulic Council in similar cases. The authority of this tribunal over the members and subjects of the empire was sometimes contested by the Protestant party, but it continued to exercise in many cases concurrent jurisdiction with the Imperial Chamber until the final dissolution of the empire.b.

Such is a brief outline of the constitution of the Germanic empire as finally organized by the treaties of Westphalia, 1648, and by the recess of the Diet of Ratisbon, 1662. It has been well observed that "whatever might have been its defects, and many of them seem to have been susceptible of reformation without destroying the system of government, it had one invaluable excellence: it protected the rights of the weaker against the stronger powers. The law of nations was first taught in Germany, and grew out of the public law of the empire. To narrow, as far as possible the rights of war and conquest, was a natural principle of those who belonged to petty states, and had nothing to tempt them in ambition."c

It will perhaps be found convenient to divide the history of international law since the peace of Westphalia into distinct epochs.

The first of these may comprise the period which elapsed between the peace of Westphalia, 1648, and that of Utrecht, 1713.

The second will include the period from the peace of Utrecht, 1713, to the treaties of peace concluded at Paris and Hubertsburg in 1763.

Schoell, Histoire abrégée des traités de paix, tome i. ch. 1. s. 4.

c Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. i. ch. 5.

§ 1. First Period from the of peace

that of Ut

recht.

The third extends from the peace of Paris and Hubertsburg, 1763, to the French revolution, 1789.

The fourth from the French revolution, 1789, to the Congress of Vienna, 1815.

FIRST PERIOD.

The intermediate period between the peace of Westphalia and that of Utrecht was filled with a series of wars, Westphalia to growing out of the ambitious projects of Louis XIV, seeking to extend the frontiers of France towards the Rhine, and to secure for his dynasty the rich inheritance of Spain and the Indies on the extinction of the male line of the Spanish branch of the house of Austria. During this period the progress of these wars was occasionally suspended by the peace of Aix la Chapelle in 1668, of Nimiguen in 1678, and of Ryswick 1697. Each of these treaties was in fact a mere temporary truce, in which the contending parties sought only to gain time and strength to renew the struggle. In this protracted contest the republic of the United Provinces became alternately the ally and the enemy of France and England, as the apprehensions from the territorial aggrandizement of the one, or the commercial rivalry and naval domination of the other predominated in the councils of Holland.

The history of this long series of wars, and of the negotiations by which they were occasionally suspended, is fruitful in examples of the progress which the law of nations continued to make, in spite of the practical violation of its precepts too often occurring in the intercourse of states. The revolutions of Holland and Switzerland had been confirmed by the peace of Westphalia, 1648. The civil war between Charles I. and his people, consummated at the same moment by the establishment of the English commonwealth, insulated the British islands more than ever from the political system of the continent. Cromwell's diplomacy resembled that of Napoleon in point of energy; but it aimed at conservation, not conquest. Cardinal Mazarin, looking only to political and commercial interests, did

not hesitate to recognize the government of an usurper who had shed the blood of his sovereign on the scaffold. He avowed the maxim that the relations of amity and commerce between states had no necessary connection with the form of their respective governments, and sought to maintain the good understanding between France and England by a religious execution of the subsisting treaties which had been made with the dethroned and banished house of Stuart.d It was only when the revolution of 1688 placed at the head of the British government an active and able prince, who formed the continental alliance by which the ambitious. designs of Louis XIV were baffled, that the latter monarch embraced the cause of the Stuarts; motives of political interest coinciding with the principle of legitimacy and the divine right of kings. During all this period, the influence of the writings of the publicists, including Grotius and his successors, was perceptibly felt in the councils and conduct of nations. The diplomacy of the seventeenth century was learned and laborious in the transaction of business. Its state papers are filled with appeals, not merely to reasons of policy, but to the principles of right, of justice, and equity; to the authority of the oracles of public law; to those general rules and principles by which the rights of the weak are protected against the invasions of superior force by the union of all who are interested in the common

d Mazarin's envoy to the English Parliament, de Neuville, in his public audience, laid down the principles of international policy on which the French government proceeded in the following terms: "L'union qui doit être entre les états voisins ne se règle pas suivant la forme de leurs gouvernemens; c'est pourquoi qu'il ait plu à Dieu par sa providence de changer celle qui étoit ci devant établie dans ce pays, il ne laisse pas d'y avoir une necessité de commerce et d'intelligence entre la France et l'Angleterre. Ce royaume a pu changer de face, et de monarchie devenir république, mais la situation des lieux ne se change point. Les peuples demeurent toujours voisins et intéressés l'un avec l'autre par le commerce. Par ces considérations importantes au bonheur de deux Etats si puissans, il semble que ceux qui en ont la conduite doivent employer tous leurs soins pour prévenir les inconveniens capables d'altérer en quelque sorte les anciennes alliances."

tion to main

danger. In the present age these laborious discussions appear superfluous and pedantic. These general principles are taken for granted, and it is not thought necessary to demonstrate them by reasoning or the authority of the learned. But in the times of which we speak they had not yet acquired the force of axioms, and required to be fortified by argument and an appeal to testimonies, which showed the general concurrence of enlightened men on those rules of justice, which regulate, or ought to regulate the intercourse.

between nations.

§ 2. Princi- Among the principles constantly appealed to in the diplo- ' ple of interven- matic discussions of this period was that of the right of intain the bal- tervention to prevent the undue aggrandizement of one ance of power. European state affecting the general security and independence of nations by materially disturbing the equilibrium of their respective forces. Whatever disputes might arise as to its application, the principle itself was acknowledged on all hands, although it was not always accurately distinguished from the right of interference by one state, or a number of states, in order to obviate a danger arising from the internal transactions of a neighboring state. The idea of a systematic arrangement for securing to states within the same sphere of political action the undisturbed possession of their existing territories, is, as we have already seen, as old as the science of politics itself. The system of the balance of power, was theoretically understood, if not practically adopted by the ancient states of Greece and the neighboring nations. Still it must be admitted that the first practical application of the balancing system to that constant supervision, which has been since habitually exercised over the relative forces of the European states, can only be distinctly traced back to the developements their policy received soon after the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII at the end of the fifteenth century. The princes and

e See introduction, p. 1.

republics of that country extended on this occasion to the affairs of Europe the maxims they had hitherto applied to regulate the balance of power among the Italian states.f During the sixteenth century the long and violent struggle. engendered by the religious reformation in Germany spread. throughout Europe, and became closely connected with political interests and ambition. The great Catholic and Protestant powers mutually protected the adherents of their own faith in the bosom of rival states. The repeated interference of Austria and Spain in favor of the Catholic faction in France, Germany, and England, and of the Protestant powers to protect their persecuted brethren in Germany, France, and the Netherlands gave a peculiar colouring to the political transactions of the age. This was still more heightened by the conduct of Catholic France, under the administration of Cardinal Richelieu in sustaining by a singular refinement of policy the Protestant princes and people of Germany-against the house of Austria, whilst he repressed with a severe hand the Calvinistic reformers of France. The liberties of the German protestants were secured by the peace of Westphalia, guaranteed by France and Sweden: but the right reserved by the peace to the states of the Empire of forming alliances among themselves and with foreign powers, was first exercised in 1651, by the formation of the league of the Rhine concluded between the electors of Mentz, Cologne, Treves, Bavaria, the bishop of Munster and the count palatine of the Rhine. The Protestant princes of Germany, with Sweden at their head, followed this example by concluding a similar alliance at Hildesheim in 1651. This alliance consisted of the king of Sweden, as duke of Bremen and Verden, the dukes of Brunswick, Luneburg, Zell, Wolfenbuttel, and Hanover, and the landgrave of Hesse Cassel. These two leagues were united together in the alliance of the Rhine concluded

Robertson's Charles V., Vol. i. View of the Progress of Society in Europe, sect. 2.