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 their houses by one third, and to recommend, as far as possible, a similar reduction in the daily food of their friends and neighbours. By great exertions eight hundred thousand quarters of foreign wheat were brought into the kingdom during 1796; but even this extra quantity would have been insufficient to meet the wants of the people had not an abundant harvest at home during that year happily restored the balance of supply and demand, so that prices once more declined to their ordinary range.

But though saved from the calamities of famine at home, England had still to contend against the leading European powers. In 1780 Russia, roused from the lethargy of ages by an unusually energetic monarch, made great efforts to extend her power and commerce, not without a manifest desire to grasp as much as she could of that more justly belonging to other nations. With this view the Empress Catherine issued her famous "Declaration to the Courts of St. James, Versailles, and Madrid," which is well worthy of consideration. In this celebrated document, which however remained for some years in abeyance, the Empress asserted that she had "fully manifested her sentiments of moderation, and, further, that she had supported against the Ottoman Empire the rights of neutrality and the liberty of universal commerce." She also expressed her surprise that her subjects were not permitted "peaceably to enjoy the fruits of their industry, and the rights belonging to a neutral nation;" and as she considered these principles to be coincident with the primitive law of nations which every people may claim, and even the belligerent