Montesquieu's great treatise on Rome, "De la conduite que les Romains tinrent pour soumettre les peuples," should be carefully studied by every one who watches the career and policy of Russia. The classic scholar will remember the state-craft of the Roman senate, which took care in every foreign war to appear in the character of a Protector. Thus Rome protected the Ætolians and the Greek cities against Macedon; she protected Bithynia and other small Asiatic states against the Syrian kings; she protected Numidia against Carthage; and in numerous other instances assumed the same specious character. But "woe to the people whose liberty depends on the continued forbearance of an over-mighty protector."* Every state which Rome protected was ultimately subjugated and absorbed by her. And Russia has been the protector of Poland-the protector of the Crimea-the protector of Courland-the protector of Georgia, Immeritia, Mingrelia, the Tcherkessian and Caucasian tribes, &c. She has first protected, and then appropriated them all. She protects Moldavia and Wallachia. A few years ago she became the protector of Turkey from Mehemet Ali; and since the summer of 1849, she has made herself the protector of Austria. When the partisans of Russia speak of the disinterestedness with which she withdrew her protecting troops from Constantinople and from Hungary, let us here also mark the ominous exactness of the parallel between her and Rome. While the ancient world yet contained a number of independent states, which might have made a formidable league against Rome if she had alarmed them by openly avowing her ambitious schemes, Rome's favorite policy was seeming disinterestedness and moderation. After her first war against Philip, after that against Antiochus, and many others, victorious Rome promptly withdrew her troops from the territories which they occupied. She affected to employ her arms only for the good of others. But, when the favorable moment came, she always found a pretext for marching her legions back into each coveted district, and making it a Roman province. Fear, not moderation, is the only effective check on the ambition of such powers as ancient Rome and modern Russia. The amount of that fear depends on the amount of timely vigilance and energy which other states choose to employ against the common enemy of their freedom and national independence. * Malkin's "History of Greece." SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF PULTOWA, A.D. 1709, AND THE DEFEAT OF BURGOYNE AT SARATOGA, A.D. 1777. A.D. 1713. Treaty of Utrecht. Philip is left by it in possession of the throne of Spain. But Naples, Milan, the Spanish territories on the Tuscan coast, the Spanish Netherlands, and some parts of the French Netherlands, are given to Austria. France cedes to England Hudson's Bay and Straits, the island of St. Christopher, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland in America. Spain cedes to England Gibraltar and Minorca, which the English had taken during the war. The King of Prussia and the Duke of Savoy both obtain considerable additions of territory to their dominions. 1715. Death of Queen Anne. The house of Hanover begins to reign in England. A rebellion in favor of the Stuarts is put down. Death of Louis XIV. 1718. Charles XII. killed at the siege of Frederickshall. 1725. Death of Peter the Great of Russia. 1740. Frederic II. king of Prussia. He attacks the Austrian dominions, and conquers Silesia. 1742. War between France and England. 1743. Victory of the English at Dettingen. 1745. Victory of the French at Fontenoy. Rebellion in Scotland in favor of the house of Stuart; finally quelled by the battle of Culloden in the next year. 1748. Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 1756-1763. The Seven Years' War, during which Prussia makes an heroic resistance against the armies of Austria, Russia, and France. England, under the administration of the elder Pitt (afterward Lord Chatham), takes a glorious part in the war in opposition to France and Spain. Wolfe wins the battle of Quebec, and the English conquer Canada, Cape Breton, and St. John. Clive begins his career of conquest in India. Cuba is taken by the English from Spain. 1763. Treaty of Paris; which leaves the power of Prussia increased, and its military reputation greatly exalted. 66 France, by the treaty of Paris, ceded to England Canada and the island of Cape Breton, with the islands and coasts of the gulf and river of St. Lawrence. The boundaries between the two nations in North America were fixed by a line drawn along the middle of the Mississippi, from its source to its mouth. All on the left or eastern bank of that river was given up to England, except the city of New Orleans, which was reserved to France; as was also the liberty of the fisheries on a part of the coasts of Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The islands of St. Peter and Miquelon were given them as a shelter for their fishermen, but without permission to raise fortifications. The islands of Martinico, Guadaloupe, Mariegalante, Desirada, and St. Lucia, were surrendered to France; while Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica, and Tobago, were ceded to England. This latter power retained her conquests on the Senegal, and restored to France the island of Gorea, on the coast of Africa. France was put in possession of the forts and factories which belonged to her in the East Indies, on the coasts of Coromandel, Orissa, Malabar, and Bengal, under the restriction of keeping up no military force in Bengal. "In Europe, France restored all the conquests she had made in Germany, as also the island of Minorca. England gave up to her Belleisle, on the coast of Brittany; while Dunkirk was kept in the same condition as had been determined by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The island of Cuba, with the Havana, were restored to the King of Spain, who, on his part, ceded to England Florida, with Port Augustine and the Bay of Pensacola. The King of Portugal was restored to the same state in which he had been before the war. The colony of St. Sacrament in America, which the Spaniards had conquered, was given back to him. "The peace of Paris, of which we have just now spoken, was the era of England's greatest prosperity. Her commerce and navigation extended over all parts of the globe, and were supported by a naval force, so much the more imposing, as it was no longer counterbalanced by the maritime power of France, which had been almost annihilated in the preceding war. The immense territories which that peace had secured her, both in Africa and America, opened up new channels for her industry; and what deserves specially to be remarked is, that she acquired at the same time vast and important possessions in the East Indies.* * Koch's "Revolutions of Europe." VICTORY OF THE AMERICANS OVER BURGOYNE AT SARATOGA, A.D. 1777. Westward the course of empire takes its way; The first four acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day, Or the four great powers that now principally rule the political destinies of the world, France and England are the only two whose influence can be dated back beyond the last century and a half. The third great power, Russia, was a feeble mass of barbarism before the epoch of Peter the Great; and the very existence of the fourth great power, as an independent nation, commenced within the memory of living men. By the fourth great power of the world I mean the mighty commonwealth of the Western Continent, which now commands the admiration of mankind. That homage is sometimes reluctantly given, and is sometimes accompanied with suspicion and ill will. can refuse it. All the physical essentials for national strength are undeniably to be found in the geographical position and amplitude of territory which the United States possess; in their almost inexhaustible tracts of fertile but hitherto untouched soil, in their stately forests, in their mountain chains and their rivers, their beds of coal, and stores of metallic wealth, in their extensive sea-board along the waters of two oceans, and in their already numerous and rapidly-increasing population. And when we examine the character of this population, no one can look on the fearless energy, the sturdy determination, the aptitude for local self-government, the versatile alacrity, and the unresting spirit of enterprise which characterize the Anglo-Americans, without feeling that here he beholds the true elements of progressive might. Three quarters of a century have not yet passed since the United States ceased to be mere dependencies of England. And even if we date their origin from the period when the first per manent European settlements out of which they grew were made on the western coast of the North Atlantic, the increase of their strength is unparalleled either in rapidity or extent. The ancient Roman boasted, with reason, of the growth of Rome from humble beginnings to the greatest magnitude which the world had then ever witnessed. But the citizen of the United States is still more justly entitled to claim this praise. In two centuries and a half his country has acquired ampler dominion than the Roman gained in ten. And even if we credit the legend of the band of shepherds and outlaws with which Romulus is said to have colonized the Seven Hills, we find not there so small a germ of future greatness as we find in the group of a hundred and five ill-chosen and disunited emigrants who founded Jamestown in 1607, or in the scanty band of Pilgrim Fathers who, a few years later, moored their bark on the wild and rock-bound coast of the wilderness that was to become New England. The power of the United States is emphatically the "imperium quo neque ab exordio ullum fere minus, neque incrementis toto orbe amplius humana potest memoria recordari."* Nothing is more calculated to impress the mind with a sense of the rapidity with which the resources of the American republic advance, than the difficulty which the historical inquirer finds in ascertaining their precise amount. If he consults the most recent works, and those written by the ablest investigators of the subject, he finds in them admiring comments on the change which the last few years, before those books were written, had made; but when he turns to apply the estimates in those books to the present moment, he finds them wholly inadequate. Before a book on the subject of the United States has lost its novelty, those states have outgrown the descriptions which it contains. The celebrated work of the French statesman, De Tocqueville, appeared about fifteen years ago. In the passage which I am about to quote, it will be seen that he predicts the constant increase of the Anglo-American power, but he looks on the Rocky Mountains as their extreme western limit for many years to come. He had evidently no expectation of himself seeing that power dominant along the Pacific as well as along the Atlantic coast. He says:† * Eutropius, lib. i., exordium. † The original French of these passages will be found in the chapter |