acts committed in the course of it, they were guilty of the grossest injustice. No nation had a contention within itself, but the ancient Romans, with their usual insolence, immediately interfered, and with profound duplicity pretended to take part with the oppressed for the sake of justice, though in reality for the purpose of dominion. It was by a violation of the right of national independence, that they artfully dissolved the Achæan league, and decreed that each member of the confederacy should be governed by its own laws, independent of the general authority.[1] But so surprisingly loose and inaccurate were the theories of the ancients on the subject of national independence, that the Greeks seem never to have questioned the right of one state to interfere in the internal concerns of another.[2] We have several instances within time of memory, of unwarrantable and flagrant violations of the independence of nations. The interference of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, in the internal government of Poland, and first dismembering it of large portions of its territory, and then finally overturning its constitution, and destroying its existence as an independent power, was an aggravated abuse of national right. There were several cases which preceded, or which arose during the violence of the French revolution, which were unjustifiable invasions of the rights of independent nations to prescribe their own forms of government, and to deal in their discretion with their own domestic concerns. Among other instances, we may refer to the invasion of Holland by the Prussian arms in 1787, and of France by the Prussian arms in 1792, and of wars fomented or declared against all monarchical forms of government, by the French rulers, during the earlier and more intemperate stages of their revolution. We may cite, also, the invasion of Naples by Austria in 1821, and the still more recent invasion of Spain by France,
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OF THE LAW OF NATIONS.
[Part I.
