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Rh in Germany left the Catholic, the Lutheran, and the Reformed Churches in possession of their respective inde pendence, whilst they relieved the minor princes from their strict dependence on the empire ; but, above all. they con ferred on France and Sweden, as mediating powers, the right of intervention for the purpose of upholding the provisions of the treaty. In other words, the balance which had been established between the states of Central Europe was regulated by external weights, which could be brought to bear upon it. The result of this combination, due mainly to Cardinal Mazarin, was certainly injurious to the unity and independence of Germany, and it tended to aid the aggressive and dictatorial power of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, the fundamental principles of the Treaty of Westphalia were recognised and renewed as the conditions of the general peace of Europe down to the French Revolu tion ; they were not wholly absent from the minds of the negotiators at Vienna in 1815 ; and they only received their death-blow from the hand of the Prussian Government in 1866 and 1870. Whatever might be the merits of the Treaty of Westphalia, it had not that of securing to Europe an unbroken or durable peace ; and even the territorial relations of France and Germany were altered within thirty years of that time by the conquest of Tranche Comte and Alsace. But the wars of Louis XIV. were not general wars, until he engaged in the fatal attempt to place his grandson on the throne of Spain, and to unite the two crowns in the house of Bourbon. Efforts had been made, in view of the approaching extinction of the Spanish branch of the house of Austria, to preserve the balance of power by a timely partition of the vast dominions of the Spanish empire a remarkable example of an attempt to prevent a formidable catastrophe by an equitable arrangement. But it may be doubted whether any arrangement in which so little account was taken of the wishes and traditions of nations could possibly have succeeded ; and it unques tionably failed, because Louis XIV. did not hesitate to repudiate the treaties he had signed, and to avail himself of the last will and testament of Charles II., which had been extorted from the Spanish court by his intrigues. That event raised again the whole question of the balance of power in Europe. It was received as a doctrine of political faith that the union of the French and Spanish crowns in one family must be fatal to the independence of all other states ; that it would replace the Stuarts upon the throne of England, and establish the ascendency of France and the Catholic party over Europe. It was there fore resisted by a coalition, of which England, Austria, and Holland were the principal members. France was at length reduced to the lowest point of humiliation, and in 1709 peace might have been obtained on every point but one. Louis refused to turn his arms against his own grandson, and the war continued till 1715. Philip V. retained the Spanish crown, and the relations of all the European states were once more adjusted with legal nicety at Utrecht. Great pains were taken to provide, by a system of renunciations, against the possibility of the union of the crowns of France and Spain on the same head, because it was held that such a contingency would be fatal to the balance of power in Europe. But these precautions did not prevent the conclusion, at a later period, of the family compact between the two branches of the house of Bourbon, which was regarded as a lasting danger to other countries, and was opposed by the whole strength of Britain and the genius of Chatham. The peace of Utrecht was denounced by Parliament and detested by the nation as an inglorious termination of a glorious war, and its authors were con signed to obloquy and exile ; but it secured the peace of Europe for thirty years ; it reduced the power of France ; and had it not been for the German dominions of the house of Hanover, it might have been still longer before England was drawn into another war. Hitherto the political system of Europe had comprised little more than the states of France, Austria, Spain, Sweden, and Holland, with the occasional intervention of Great Britain, more for the defence of the interests of others than of her own. But the 18th century witnessed a total change in the politics of the world. A new empire, Russia, arose in the north, under the genius of Peter and of Catherine ; the ambition and military skill of Frederick II. raised Prussia from a secondary member of the German empire to a powerful and independent kingdom ; the colonial empires of Spain, France, and Britain had extended their territorial interests to the continents of Asia and America, and to the eastern and the western isles, inso much that wars, begun in Europe, soon raged on the banks of the Ganges and the St Lawrence ; and the declaration of independence of the United States of America called into being a new and powerful people of the future. The partition of Poland, which was commenced in 1772, marked a new era of aggressive revolutionary policy ; it was a gross invasion of the principle of the balance of power, effected by three powers, jealous of their respective strength, but indifferent to the rights of an independent nation and to the opinion of Europe. That lawless act was the prelude to more violent attacks on the sovereignty and nationality of many countries, for before the century closed the French Revolution, and the wars that followed it, crushed to atoms the ancient fabric of Europe. Whilst events of this magnitude were occurring in the world, it is obvious that the theory of the balance of power was entirely displaced and dislocated. New elements were at work over a far wider area ; new sources of power and influence were opened of far more importance than those territorial and dynastic questions which occupied the statesmen of Miinster and of Utrecht ; ancient land-marks were swept away ; minor states were annihilated ; and the temporary domination of Napoleon over a great portion of the continent of Europe seemed to have overthrown the balance of power for ever. In those dark and evil days public writers like Gentz and Mackintosh still maintained the principle that peace could only be restored by a due recognition of the rights and independence of every nation, and England adhered in flexibly to the policy of combining the scattered elements of Europe against the common enemy. Half a dozen times over these coalitions failed ; but they succeeded at last, and this country had the glory of playing no inconsiderable part in the restoration of the liberties of all other nations against foreign aggression. Great as were the cost and the burden of that tremendous war, we still hold that the pro digious power of France and the boundless ambition of Napoleon left us no honourable alternative but to pursue it ; and, as Mr Fox himself discovered when he conducted the negotiations of 1806, it was impossible to conclude peace with France without basely surrendering the whole inte rests of Europe to universal oppression, and without exposing this country to be at last the victim of a power which had devoured all the rest. The principle of the balance of power, in the sense of mutual defence, was never asserted with greater energy than it was by this country in that stmggle, and we do not regret it. &quot; As long,&quot; says Bacon, &quot; as men are men, and as long as reason is reason, a just fear will be a just cause of a preventive war; but