evil of this nature.

Even now, after the events, all the causes may be somewhat difficult to ascertain. Very many are however traceable. But these things history and books of speculation (as I have already said) did not teach men to foresee, and of course to resist. Now that they are no longer a matter of sagacity, but of experience, of recent experience, of our own experience, it would be unjustifiable to go back to the records of other times, to instruct us to manage what they never enabled us to foresee.

APPENDIX.

EXTRACTS FROM VATTELL'S LAW OF NATIONS.

[The Titles, and Notes, are by Mr. BURKE, excepting such of the Notes as are here distinguished.]

CASES OF INTERFERENCE WITH INDEPENDENT POWERS.

BOOK II. CHAP. IV. § 53.

Ir then there is any where a nation of a restless and mischievous disposition, always ready to injure others, to traverse their designs, and to raise domestick troubles,* it is not to be doubted, that all have a right to join in order to repress, chastise, and put it ever after out of its power to injure them. Such should be the just fruits of the policy which Machiavel praises in Cæsar Borgia. The conduct followed by Philip II. king of Spain, was adapted to unite all Europe against him; and it was from just reasons that Henry the Great formed the design of humbling a power, formidable by its forces, and pernicious by its maxims.

§ 70. Let us apply to the unjust, what we have said above (§ 53,) of a mischievous, or maleficent nation. If there be any that makes an open profession of trampling justice under foot, of despising and violating the right of others,† whenever it finds an opportunity, the interest of human society will au

This is the case of France-Semonville at Turin-Jacobin clubs -Liegois meeting-Flemish meeting-La Fayette's answer-Cloot's embassy-Avignon.

The French acknowledge no power not directly emanating from the people.

thorise all others to unite, in order to humble and chastise it. We do not here forget the maxim established in our preliminaries, that it does not belong to nations to usurp the power of being judges of each other. In particular cases, liable to the least doubt, it ought to be supposed, that each of the parties may have some right: and the injustice of that which has committed the injury, may proceed from error, and not from a general contempt of justice. But if, by constant maxims, and by a continued conduct, one nation shews, that it has evidently this pernicious disposition, and that it considers no right as sacred, the safety of the human race requires that it should be suppressed. To form and support an unjust pretension, is to do an injury not only to him who is interested in this pretension, but to mock at justice in general, and to injure all nations.

§ 56. If the prince, attacking the fundamental laws, gives his subjects a legal right to resist him; if tyranny, becoming insupportable, obliges the nation to rise in their defence; every foreign power has a right to succour an oppressed people who implore their assistance. The English justly com

plained of James the Second. The nobility, and the most distinguished patriots, resolved to put a check on his enterprizes, which manifestly tended to overthrow the constitution, and to destroy the liberties and the religion of the people; and therefore applied for assistance to the United Provinces. The authority of the prince of Orange had, doubtless, an influence on the deliberations of the states-general; but it did not make them commit injustice; for when a people, from good reasons, take up arms against an oppressor, justice and generosity require, that brave men should be assisted in the defence of their liberties. Whenever, therefore, a civil war is kindled in a state, foreign powers may assist that party which appears to them to have justice on their side. He who assists an odious tyrant; he who declares FOR AN UNJUST AND REBELLIOUS PEOPLE, offends against his duty. When the bands of the political society are broken, or at least suspended between the sovereign and his people, they may then be considered as two distinct powers; and since each is independent of all foreign

authority, nobody has a right to judge them. Either may be in the right; and each of those who grant their assistance may believe that he supports a good cause. It follows then, in virtue of the voluntary laws of nations, (see Prelim. § 21) that the two parties may act as having an equal right, and behave accordingly, till the decision of the affair.

But we ought not to abuse this maxim for authorizing odious proceedings against the tranquillity of states. It is a violation of the law of nations to persuade those subjects to revolt who actually obey their sovereign, though they complain of his government.

The practice of nations is conformable to our maxims. When the German protestants came to the assistance of the reformed in France, the court never undertook to treat them otherwise than as common enemies, and according to the laws of war. France at the same time assisted the Netherlands, which took up arms against Spain, and did not pretend that her troops should be considered upon any other footing than as auxiliaries in a regular war. But no power avoids complaining of an atrocious injury, if any one attempts by his emissaries to excite his subjects to revolt.

As to those monsters who, under the title of sovereigns, render themselves the scourges and horrour of the human race; these are savage beasts, from which every brave man may justly purge the earth. All antiquity has praised Hercules for delivering the world from an Antæus, a Busiris, and a Diomedes.

Book 4. Chap. 2. § 14. After stating, that nations have no right to interfere in domestick concerns, he proceeds"But this rule does not preclude them from espousing the quarrel of a dethroned king, and assisting him, if he appears to have justice on his side. They then declare themselves enemies to the nation who has acknowledged his rival, as when two different nations are at war they are at liberty to assist that whose quarrel they think has the fairest appearance."

CASE OF ALLIANCES.

BOOK II. CHAP. XII. § 196.

It is asked if that alliance subsists with the king, and the royal family, when by some revolution they are deprived of their crown? We have lately remarked, (§ 194) that a personal alliance expires with the reign of him who contracted it but that is to be understood of an alliance with the state, limited as to its duration, to the reign of the contracting king. This, of which we are here speaking, is of another nature. For though it binds the state, since it is bound by all the publick acts of its sovereign, it is made directly in favour of the king and his family; it would therefore be absurd for it to terminate at the moment when they have need of it, and at an event against which it was made. Besides, the king does not lose his quality merely by the loss of his kingdom. If he is stripped of it unjustly by an usurper, or by rebels, he preserves his rights, in the number of which are his alliances.*

* By the seventh Article of the treaty of TRIPLE ALLIANCE, between France, England, and Holland, signed at the Hague, in the year 1717, it is stipulated, "that if the kingdoms, countries, or provinces, of any of the allies, are disturbed by intestine quarrels, or by rebellions, on account of the said successions, [the protestant succession to the throne of Great Britain, and the succession to the throne of France, as settled by the treaty Utrecht] or under any other pretext whatever, the ally thus in trouble shall have full right to demand of his allies the succours abovementioned ;" that is to say, the same succours as in the case of an invasion from any foreign power; 8000 foot and 2000 horse to be furnished by France or England, and 4000 foot and 1000 horse by the States General.

By the fourth Article of the Treaty of QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE, between England, France, Holland, and the Emperour of Germany, signed in the year 1718, the contracting powers "promise and oblige themselves that they will and ought to maintain, guarantee, and defend the right and succession to the kingdom of France, according to the tenour of the treaties made at Utrecht the 11th day of April, 1713; and this they shall perform against all persons whatsoever who may pre