Both Mr. Pinkney, at London, and Gen. Armstrong, at Paris, were instructed to apprise the governments to which they were accredited of the foregoing resolutions. (Mr. Smith, Sec. of State, to Mr. Pinkney, min. to England, Jan. 22, 1811, MS. Inst. U. States Ministers, VII. 140.)

The report having got abroad that Spain had ceded the Floridas to Great Britain, the American minister in London was instructed to inquire whether it was so. West Florida, said Mr. Monroe, who was then Secretary of State, belonged to the United States. If a cession had been made only of East Florida, Great Britain would, if her policy was peace, explain her views in regard to it. It would be agreeable to the United States "to obtain it of her at a fair equivalent."

Mr. Monroe, Sec. of State, to Mr. J. Q. Adams, min. to England, Dec. 10, 1815, MS. Inst. U. States Ministers, VIII. 13.

See supra, §§ 101, 102, as to Louisiana and the Fioridas.

III. REVOLUTION IN SPANISH AMERICA.

See supra, §§ 28-36.

§ 929.

The revolution which is making rapid progress in South America becomes daily more interesting to the United States. From the best information that we can obtain, there is much cause to believe, that those provinces will separate from the mother country. Several of them have already abrogated its authority, and established independent governments. They insist on the acknowledgment of their governments by the United States, and when it is considered that the alternative between governments, which in the event of their independence would be free and friendly, and the relation which, reasoning from the past, must be expected from them, as colonies, there is no cause to doubt in which scale our interest lies. What are the views and intentions of the British Government on this important subject? Is it not the interest of Great Britain that the Spanish provinces should become independent? Will her Government promote it, at what time and under what circumstances? In case of a rupture between the United States and Spain at any future time, what part will Great Britain take in the contest, it being distinctly to be understood that we shall ask, in regard to the Spanish provinces, no privileges in trade which shall not be common to other nations? Spain has long been unfriendly to the United States, and done them positive injuries, for which reparation has been withheld, and her Government still assumes a tone which, in other respects, is far from being satisfactory. The part which the United States may

act hereafter towards that power must depend on circumstances. Should the Spanish Government persevere in its unjust policy, it might have some influence on our measures, and it would be advantageous to know the views of the British Government in these repects."

Mr. Monroe, Sec. of State, to Mr. J. Q. Adams, min. to England, Dec. 10, 1815, MS. Inst. U. States Ministers, VIII. 13.

IV. THE HOLY ALLIANCE.

1. TREATY OF SEPTEMBER 26, 1815.

$930.

On Sept. 26, 1815, the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia concluded at Paris a treaty which was known as the Holy Alliance. The object of this league was declared to be the administration of government, in matters both internal and external, according to the precepts of justice, charity, and peace; and to this end the allied monarchs, "looking upon themselves as delegated by Providence" to rule over their respective countries, engaged to "lend one another, on every occasion and in every place, assistance, aid and support." In the course of time, as revolt against the arrangements of the treaty of Vienna became more widespread and more pronounced, the alliance ceased to wear its originally benevolent aspect and came more and more to assume the form of a league for the protection of the principle of legitimacy-the principle of the divine right of kings as opposed to the rights of the people-against the encroachments of liberal ideas. Congresses were held at Aix-laChapelle, Troppau, and Laybach, for the purpose of maturing a program to that end. The league was joined by the King of France; but England, whose Prince Regent had originally given it his informal adhesion, began to grow hostile. Her own government, with its free and parliamentary institutions, was founded on a revolution; and the allies, in the circular issued at Troppau, had associated "revolt and crime," and had declared that the European powers

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had an undoubted right to take a hostile attitude in regard to those states in which the overthrow of the government might operate as an example." In the circular issued at Laybach they denounced "as equally null, and disallowed by the public law of Europe, any pretended reform effected by revolt and open force." Popular movements were forcibly suppressed in Piedmont and Naples. In October, 1822, representatives of the allies asssembled at Verona especially for the purpose of concerting measures against the revolutionary government in Spain. As the result of their deliberations they

issued a circular in which they announced their determination "to repel the maxim of rebellion, in whatever place and under whatever form it might show itself;" and they adjourned with the secret understanding that France should intervene to suppress the constitutional government in Spain. Their ultimate object was more explicitly expressed in a secret treaty in which they engaged mutually "to put an end to the system of representative governments" in Europe, and to adopt measures to destroy " the liberty of the press.' In April, 1823, France proceeded to execute the plans of the allies by invading Spain, for the purpose of restoring the absolute monarch, Ferdinand VII. Before the close of the ensuing summer such progress had been made in the execution of this design that notice was given to the British Government that, as soon as the allies should have achieved their military objects in Spain, they would propose a congress with a view to the termination of the revolutionary governments in Spanish America. At this time Lord Castlereagh, who had always been favorably disposed towards the alliance, had been succeeded in the conduct of the foreign affairs of England by George Canning, who reflected the popular sentiment as to the policy of the allied powers. The independence of the Spanish-American governments, which had now been acknowledged by the United States, had not as yet been recognized by Great Britain. But English merchants, like those of the United States, had developed a large trade with the Spanish-American countries, a trade which the restoration of those regions to a colonial condition, whether under Spain or any of the allies, would, under the commercial system then in vogue, have cut off and destroyed. Under these circumstances, Canning, toward the close of the summer of 1823, began to sound Richard Rush, then American minister at London, as to the possibility of a joint declaration by the two Governments against the intervention of the allies in Spanish-America.

"It is now well ascertained that before the congress of the great European powers at Aix-la-Chapelle, their mediation had been solicited by Spain, and agreed to be given by them for the purpose of restoring the Spanish dominion throughout South America, under certain conditions of commercial privileges to be guaranteed to the inhabitants. The Government of the United States had been informed of this project before the meeting at Aix-la-Chapelle, and that it had been proposed by some of the allied powers that the United States should be invited to join them in this mediation. When this information was received, the ministers of the United States to France, England, and Russia were immediately instructed to make known to those respective governments that the United States would

take no part in any plan of mediation or interference in the contest between Spain and South America, which should be founded on any other basis than that of the total independence of the colonies. This declaration was communicated before the meeting to Lord Castlereagh and to the Duke de Richelieu at the congress. It occasioned some dissatisfaction to the principal allies, particularly France and Russia, as it undoubtedly disconcerted their proposed mediation. Great Britain concurring with them in the plan of restoring the Spanish authority, but aware that it could not be carried into effect. without the concurrence of the United States, declared it an indispensable condition of her participation in the mediation that there should be no resort to force against the South Americans, whatever the result of the mediation might be. To this condition, France and Russia after some hesitation assented; but they proposed that, if the South Americans should reject the terms of accommodation to be offered them with the sanction of the mediating powers, they should prohibit all commercial intercourse of their subjects respectively with them. To this condition Great Britain declined giving her assent; her motive for which is sufficiently obvious, when it is considered that, after the declaration of the United States, the practical operation of such a nonintercourse between the allies and the South Americans would have been to transfer to the United States the whole of the valuable commerce carried on with them by the merchants of Great Britain. As a last expedient it was proposed that the Duke of Wellington should be sent to Madrid with the joint powers of all the allied sovereigns, to arrange with the Spanish cabinet the terms to be offered to the South Americans, which was again defeated by the Duke's insisting that, if he should go, a previous entry should be made upon the protocol at Aix-la-Chapelle that no force against the South Americans was, in any result of his embassy, to be used. But Spain had always connected with the project of the mediation a demand that the allies should ultimately guarantee the restoration of her authority; and, finding that this was not to be obtained, she declined accepting the interposition upon any other terms.

"But while the Government of the United States have thus taken every occasion offered them in the course of events to manifest their good wishes in favor of the South Americans, they have never lost sight of the obligations incumbent on them, as avowedly neutral to the contest between them and Spain."

Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, to Mr. Thompson, Sec. of Navy, May 20, 1819, 17 MS. Dom. Let. 304.

"The present political system of Europe is founded upon the over- \ throw of that which had grown out of the French Revolution, and has assumed its shape from the body of treaties concluded at Vienna

in 1814 and 1815, at Paris towards the close of the same year, 1815, and in Aix-la-Chapelle in the autumn of 1818. Its general character is that of a compact between the five principal European powersAustria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia-for the preservation of universal peace. These powers having then just emerged victorious from a long, portentous and sanguinary struggle against the oppressive predominancy of one of them, under revolutionary sway, appear to have bent all their faculties to the substitution of a system which should preserve them from that evil-the preponderancy of one power by the subjugation, virtual if not nominal, of the rest. Whether they perceived in its full extent, considered in its true colours, or provided by judicious arrangements for the revolutionary temper of the weapons by which they had so long been assailed and from which they had so severely suffered, is a question now in a course of solution. Their great anxiety appears to have been to guard themselves each against the other.

"The League of Peace, so far as it was a covenant of organized governments, has proved effectual to its purposes by an experience of five years. Its only interruption has been in this hemisphere, though between nations strictly European; by the invasion of the Portuguese on the territory claimed by Spain, but already lost to her, on the eastern shore of the Rio de la Plata. This aggression, too, the European alliance have undertaken to control; and in connection with it they have formed projects hitherto abortive of interposing in the revolutionary struggle between Spain and her South American colonies.

"As a compact between governments it is not improbable that the European alliance will last as long as some of the states who are parties to it. The warlike passions and propensities of the present age find their principal aliment, not in the enmities between nation and nation, but in the internal dissensions between the component parts of all. The war is between nations and their rulers.

"The Emperor Alexander may be considered as the principal patron and founder of the League of Peace. His interest is the more unequivocal in support of it. His empire is the only party to the compact free from that internal fermentation which threatens the existence of all the rest. His territories are the most extensive, his military establishment the most stupendous, his country the most improvable and thriving of them all. He is therefore naturally the most obnoxious to the jealousy and fears of his associates, and his circumstances point his policy to a faithful adhesion to the general system, with a strong reprobation of those who would resort to special and partial alliances, from which any one member of the league should be excluded. This general tendency of his policy is corroborated by the mild and religious turn of his individual character. He finds a