my own on this high flight of diplomatic virtue, we will hear what Harrington has said on this subject. "A man may devote himself to death or destruction to save a nation; but no nation will devote itself to death or destruction to save mankind. Machiavel is decried for saying, 'that no consideration is to be had of what is just or unjust, of what is merciful or cruel, of what is honourable or ignominious, in case it be to save a state or to preserve liberty:' which as to the manner of expression may perhaps be crudely spoken. But to imagine that a nation will devote itself to death or destruction any more after faith given, or an engagement thereto tending, than if there had been no engagement made or faith given, were not piety but folly."

-Crudely spoken indeed! and not less crudely thought: nor is the matter much mended by the commentator. Yet every man, who is at all acquainted with the world and its past history, knows that the fact itself is truly stated: and what is more important in the present argument, he cannot find in his heart a full, deep, and downright verdict, that it should be otherwise. The consequences of this per

plexity in the moral feelings, are not seldom extensively injurious. For men hearing the duties which would be binding on two individuals living under the same laws, insisted on as equally obligatory on two independent states, in extreme cases, where they see clearly the impracticability of realizing such a notion; and having at the same time a dim half-consciousness, that two States can never be placed exactly on the same ground as two individuals; relieve themselves from their perplexity by cutting what they cannot untie, and assert that national policy cannot in all cases be subordinated to the laws of morality: in other words, that a government may act with injustice, and yet remain blameless. This assertion was hazarded (I record it with unfeigned regret) by a Minister of State, on the affair of Copenhagen. Tremendous assertion! that would render every complaint, which we make, of the abominations of the French tyrant, hypocrisy, or mere incendiary declamation for the simple-headed multitude! But, thank heaven! it is as unnecessary and unfounded, as it is tremendous. For what is a treaty ? a volun

tary contract between two nations. So we will state it in the first instance. Now it is an impossible case, that any nation can be supposed by any other to have intended its own absolute destruction in a treaty, which its interests alone could have prompted it to make. The very thought is self-contradictory. Not only Athens (we will say) could not have intended this to have been understood in any specific promise made to Sparta; but Sparta. could never have imagined that Athens had so intended it. And Athens itself must have known, that had she even affirmed the contrary, Sparta could not have believed-nay, would have been under a moral obligation not to have believed her. Were it possible to suppose such a case-for instance, such a treaty made by a single besieged town, under an independent government as that of Numantium-it becomes no longer a state, but the act of a certain number of individuals voluntarily sacrificing themselves, each to preserve his separate honour. For the state was already destroyed by the circumstances which alone could make such an engagement conceivable.

-But we have said, nations.-Applied to England and France, relatively to treaties, this is but a form of speaking. The treaty is really made by some half dozen, or perhaps half a hundred individuals, possessing the government of these countries. Now it is a universally admitted part of the Law of Nations, that an engagement entered into by a minister with a foreign power, when it was known to this power that the minister in so doing had exceeded and contravened his instructions, is altogether nugatory. And is it to be supposed for a moment, that a whole nation, consisting of perhaps twenty millions of human souls, could ever have invested a few individuals, whom, altogether for the promotion of its welfare it had intrusted with its government, with the right of signing away its existence?

ESSAY VII.

Amicas reprehensiones gratissime accipiamus, oportet: etiam si reprehendi non meruit opinio nostra, vel hanc propter causam, quód recte defendi potest. Si veró infirmitas vel humana vel propria, etiam cum veraciter arguitur, non potest non aliquantulum contristari, melius tumor dolet cum curatur, quám dum ei parcitur et non sanatur. Hoc enim est quod acuté vidit, qui dixit: utiliores esse haud raró inimicos objurgantes, quám amicos objurgare metuentes. Illi enim dum rixantur, dicunt aliquando vera quæ corrigamus: isti autem minorem, quám oportet, exhibent justitiæ libertatem, dum amicitiæ timent exasperare dulcedinem.-AUGUSTINUS HIERONYMO: Epist. xciii. Hieron. Opera. Tom. ii. p. 233.

Translation.-Censures, offered in friendliness, we ought to receive with gratitude: yea, though our opinions did not merit censure, we should still be thankful for the attack on them, were it only that it gives us an opportunity of successfully defending the same. (For never doth an important truth spread its roots so wide