First, we contend that if a profligate compact is entered into, or acceded to, by the rulers of any state, it is not only not binding, but it is their duty to recede from the obligations contracted, at all costs and risks. Analogies from municipal law are too numerous and obvious to require particular notice. Rather let us ask, why a nation should commit so gross an inconsistency as to persist in dishonourable courses from a mere principle of honour? A treaty has been made, and to break it would be dishonour; not so, if the treaty binds to acts of injustice and cruelty. All the powers of the Continent have of late, in their turn, broken the most solemn treaties, upon the ground of their having been forced to make them. This is a doctrine full of danger, and most liable to abuse. But surely no such risk is incurred by the position that an illegal compact is ab initio void.

But we rely upon the strict construction of the articles themselves; and observe, secondly, that they only bind England to obtain a cession from Denmark. Neither in the Convention of 1812, nor in the Treaty of 1813, is there a single expression which can fairly be interpreted as contemplating any resistance on the part of Norway. Every thing is stated with relation to the crown and the sovereign. England is to assist in obtaining "the annexation and union of Norway to Sweden;" and, if negociation fails, force is to be used. The words are, "either by good offices, or by employing naval co-operation." With whom were the good offices to be used? Did any treaty ever speak of good offices, except in the sense of negociation with a government? or of military operations, but against the forces of the state? The Convention, to which this article is an accession, says, "by negociation, or military co-operation; "and expressly mentions the two ways in which Norway can be obtained-"either by cession of the King of Denmark, or in consequence of military operations. Now these can only mean, in the other alternative, of the King of Denmark refusing the voluntary cession, and requiring force to be employed to obtain it. Then the proviso in the Treaty of 1813 speaks the same language, and states, that force shall not be used to effect the annexation, "unless the King of Denmark shall have refused to join the alliance.' It is said, indeed, that England accedes to the Convention of 1812, which contains a guarantee by Russia to Sweden "of peaceable possession" of Norway. To this there are several satisfactory answers. If one power guarantees a possession to another by a treaty containing several stipulations, a general accession of that treaty by a third power cannot be taken to imply a specific accession to the guarantee, unless it be expressed or plainly referred to; because guarantees shall not be raised by implication, nor easily presumed. But the accession of England is in fact a qualified accession. She engages to accede, "insomuch that she will oppose no obstacle to the annexation, but assist by good offices and naval cooperation;" and then the proviso, as well as the tenor of the convention acceded to, show how these exertions are to be employed-viz. with reference to the Danish crown. Again, a guarantee of peaceable possession is only a guarantee against princes and states; in this case it is a guarantee against the Danish government, and any ally of Denmark. In order to raise a guarantee so extraordinary as that contended for-viz. against the internal movements of the Norwegians-it is surely not going too far to assert, that the most positive and unambiguous expressions would have been requisite. Thirdly, there is an event expressly mentioned, in which the stipulations, whatever they may be, with respect to forcing the annexation of Norway, are to be void-viz. Denmark having acceded to the Northern alliance pre

vious to the force being employed for obtaining Norway. This throws the friends of the treaty into a manifest dilemma; for they must either admit that the only force contemplated by the treaty is a force to be exerted against the Danish crown; or they must allow that the obligation of using force against Norway ceased upon the accession of Denmark to the coalition, this accession having taken place before force was employed against the Norwegians; and, in either case, there is an end of the argument. The CoLvention of 1812, too, gives rise to the same argument.

Fourthly, the treaty of Keil, January 14, 1814, clearly shows in what sense the stipulations of the former acts were understood by England. The 10th article refers to the treaty between Denmark and Sweden, concluded on the same day, for the cession of Norway, and states it to be a satisfaction of the stipulations respecting Norway. "Whereas his Danish Majesty, in virtue of the treaty of peace this day concluded with the King of Sweden, has ceded Norway to his said Majesty, for a certain provided indemnity; his Britannic Majesty, who has thus seen his engagements contracted with Sweden in this respect fulfilled," promises to use his good offices, at the general peace, to obtain an indemnity for Denmark "for the cession of Norway." It is difficult, after signing and sealing this deed, for the English Government to deny either that Norway has been ceded, or that the cession has been of the kind stipulated in the former treaties, or that England has been satisfied with that cession as sufficient to fulfil her obligations.

Fifthly, we should be glad to be furnished with some precedents of a war waged against a people in pursuance of stipulations with their rulers. The treaty was made with Sweden, that is, with the Swedish government: it bound us to make war in a certain event, and in a particular manner, with Denmark, that is, with the Danish government. We go to war accordingly. We obtain the cession by the Danish government and as far as the contemplation of the treaty extends, Norway is ceded to Sweden, and we make peace with Denmark. If Norway is Danish, we are at peace with it: if Swedish, we are in alliance with it. Can it, in contemplation of the treaty, or of the law of nations, be neither Danish nor Swedish? Where are the precedents for considering a province as separate and distinct from the government to which it belongs? Even in the history of Poland no such precedent can be found. The statesmen, whose names are consigned to perpetual infamy in the records of the partition, were too decorous, at least in forms, to leave any such written evidence of their shame, as compacts to enslave or exterminate a people, and those execrable designs were compassed under the colour of engagements with a reference to the constituted authorities. But where is the obligation to end which we are supposed to have incurred? Must we interfere with the internal affairs of the new Swedish province, as long as there may remain any discontent among its inhabitants? Shall we next be called upon to send horse into the towns, as often as an insurrection may break out under the new dynasty?

But, lastly, supposing, for the sake of argument, it were admitted that these treaties bound England to wage war against the Norwegians as a state separate from Denmark: we should be glad to know how a general engage ment to co-operate by naval force, necessarily means only one species of naval co-operation, viz. blockade. Formerly this was a rare mode of making war and for this reason, that its effects fall on the innocent multitude with fully more weight than upon the armed body of the state. Why then must naval co-operation, in this instance of all others, be confined to the most

odious species of naval war? If the Norwegians fit out vessels against the Russians and Swedes: if they have any naval arsenals or stations; if they are receiving warlike stores by sea, or conveying them coastwise; and if the Swedish forces stand in need of maritime assistance; in all these cases we might, according to the construction contended for, be bound to interfere. But why particularly cut off supplies of provisions? Even attacking the general commerce of the country, and leaving its supply of necessaries unimpeded, would be a performance of the stipulation quite consistent with the practice of modern warfare. How often have belligerents refrained from attacking fishing vessels? But still more material is it to observe, that a naval war may be carried on in all its branches, blockade alone excepted, without any suspicion of collusion or insincerity. The whole shipping of the enemy may be exposed to our cruizers,-those carrying innocent merchandise, as well as those carrying warlike stores,-those carrying provisions, as well as those laden with other goods; and yet neutrals may be allowed to trade freely in all but contraband of war. Nay, this is the ordinary state of things in war; and, until very lately, scarcely any other kind of war used to be, generally speaking, waged. Can a reason be devised for adopting, in the case of Norway, precisely the one method of naval co-operation most severe upon the body of the people, in preference to all the other modifications of war known in the practice of nations :-in preference to the species of warfare carried on for so large a portion of the last twenty years against France herself? We have now been arguing upon the assumption, made merely for the sake of argument, that the treaties bind us to any operations at all against Norway as distinct from Denmark.

It may be thought that we have gone too minutely and technically into the discussion of a question so much better rested upon general grounds and loftier principles. But the conduct of the argument on the opposite side has imposed upon us this necessity; for it is remarkable, that almost all the advocates of the blockade have admited how repugnant, both to their feelings and principles, the measure was, but defended it on the ground of an absolute necessity arising from the obligations of treaty. Now, if we have shown that these obligations exist not, we have done away the only defence of the war; and meet its supporters on the very ground of strict construction chosen by themselves. We must now turn, however, to the more extensive views of the question. It involves the most important considerations, above all others important at the present moment, when the world is waiting in anxious, suspense for the final results of the late changes, and justly expects to see the reign of pillage and revolution succedeed by a period of quiet, in which regard will be paid to right rather than power,-and the restorers of order will at any rate not imitate the worst parts of the system they have overthrown. By the constitution of this country, the power of making wars and treaties is vested absolutely in the executive branch of the government. It is obvious that if this arrangement secures a greater degree of promptitude and decision in the management of foreign affairs, it also exposes the state to hazards of the most serious nature. If the Crown plunges into a war manifestly against the interests of the nation, hostilities must be persevered in, even although the parliament should seize the earliest opportunity to disapprove of the war; because the power of making peace may depend on the enemy as much as on ourselves. But it is still more probable that the parliament, however ruinous the war may be, and how certainly soever they would have refused to sanction it by a previous yote, will, after it has been entered into, support

the Crown in carrying it on, at least for a certain time. The argument, never to be resisted in such a case is, we have got into a scrape, no matter how, and we must do the best we can. In like manner, if a treaty has been made hurtful to the interests, and injurious to the honour, of the state, the very same men who would have refused their previous concurrence, will be disposed to support the convention when it is once entered into. If to these considerations we add the unquestionable truth, that, by our popular form of government, and the publicity which it necessarily gives to all the negociations of the state, we are, at all events, not extremely well adapted to the skilful conduct of foreign affairs; it may, perhaps, be thought that the unrestrained power of peace and war in the executive is somewhat anomalous, as well as costly; that it entails serious evils upon the country, while its only beneficial tendency is to create a degree of vigour which other parts of our constitution necessarily confine within very narrow limits. But, without entering further into this question, one thing is abundantly evident; those who have, in the exercise of the prerogative, made a pernicious treaty, or, in the application of the superintending power, sanctioned it, come before the public with a very bad grace to defend a base or impolitic line of conduct, if all they can urge is an appeal to the obligations voluntarily contracted or approved by themselves, which bind them to such conduct. What is the sum of the defence offered by the authors of the blockade? That they had a year before made an agreement with Sweden and Russia to starve the Norwegians into a surrender of their independence. They have no other pretext for the measure than this; they admit, nay contend, that they voluntarily bound the country to use its naval resources in the forcible partition of the Danish dominions; not only in compelling Denmark to cede Norway, but in reducing the Norwegians by the extremities of famine, to accept a foreign yoke; and that they did so engage, for the purpose of restoring the ancient and legitimate order of things in Europe. This they must maintain; for, if they flinch from it but an inch, if they pretend to assert that the blockade was not in contemplation at the conclusion of the treaty, there is an end of their case; the blockade is undefended.

It is, therefore, a matter of great indifference, whether the treaty of 1813 obliges us to hold this line of conduct or not, as far as the case of the government is concerned the decision of the question either way, only removes the period of blame from one year to the other. The government was either guilty of binding itself in 1813 to the most profligate policy, by a solemn and deliberate act; or it is guilty of pursuing that policy volun tarily in 1814. We apprehend the latter is the case, for the reasons already assigned-but the difference is immaterial to our present purpose. It is more important to consider the features of the policy itself.

The act which we have sanctioned, and are now diligently engaged in furthering, is the transference, without their own consent-against their declared wishes-of nearly a million of people inhabiting an extensive and independent country,-attached to that country and its independence for ages, and abhorring all foreign yoke in a singular degree, but more especially the yoke of the nation to whom we are subjecting them. It may here be proper shortly to state the relations between Denmark and Norway, for the purpose of showing that the latter is as completely an independent realm as Denmark or Sweden itself, and can in no respect be considered as a province of the Danish crown.

Like all the other northern countries, Norway was originally divided into

a great number of petty kingdoms or principalities; and these were first united by conquest, under one monarch, Harold Harfager,* about half a century after a similar union had taken place, in England under Egbert, in Scotland under Kenneth II., and in the West under Charlemagne. Harold's numerous family, legitimate and bastard, disturbed the peace and union which he had cemented: and, about a century and a half afterwards, Norway was united to Denmark by Canute the Great, whose success was prepared by the persecutions of Olaus, or Olaäf the Martyr, and the consequent rebellion of his subjects. But the possessions of sovereigns in those troublous times were as variable as their rights were obscure and uncertain. The period from which we can clearly date the union with Denmark is the year 1380, when Hagen, King of Norway, married the Princess Margaret of Denmark; and since that time the two crowns have continued united. But it is worthy of notice, that the same great queen, whose talents and conquests have procured her the title of the Semiramis of the North, a few years afterwards, by the union of Calmar, extended her dominion over Sweden also; and that this country remained under the same dynasty with the rest of Scandinavia, until its liberation was effected by Gustavus Vasa, in the early part of the sixteenth century. It might, then, with equal, some may even think with greater, propriety be contended, that Denmark was subjected to Norway, as that Norway was subjected to Denmark. The two kingdoms continued, in every respect whatever, separate and independent of each other although governed by the same sovereign. They had distinct constitutions, though formed on the same model. And when the oppressions of the nobility in 1660 made the crown and the people combine against them, and abolish the states in Denmark, a similar revolution was effected in like manner by the Norwegians, who since that period have, like the Danes, been governed by an unlimited monarchy. But their ancient laws remained; and, as often as any new edict was issued in Denmark, which was meant to be extended over Norway, its publication as a Norwegian law was requisite, exactly in the same form as if the realms had been under separate monarchs. The two countries have, therefore, distinet constitutions, though both under the same absolute sovereign.

In point of population, Norway is nearly equal to all the rest of the Danish, dominions-its extent is far greater: and if the courage, hardiness, and virtues the of people be taken into the account, and natural strength of the country be also considered, it is beyond all comparison the most important member of the state. Easily defensible on almost its whole extent of frontier, it has great facilities for attacking Sweden, the second city of which country lies wholly exposed to an inroad, as was seen in 1788, when the interference of the English minister alone, and a threat of bombarding Copenhagen, prevented Gottenburgh from being destroyed by a Norwegian force. The hatred of the Swedes is deeply rooted in the minds of the people; and, as generally happens, this feeling is mutual between the two nations. The triumphs, however, of which they can boast over each other are very unequally divided. The Swedish arms have never attacked Norway but to be foiled. Gustavus Adolphus marched an army into it, with the co-operation of Flemish and Scotch auxiliaries from the coast; but not a man of this force escaped. Charles X. attacked it three several times, in 1658, 1659, and 1660, with large bodies of troops, and his best generals:—and he An. Dom, 1028.

*A D. 875. Busching, i. 181.