ights of our merchants, and to enable the government to su hem - conventional rules of intercourse, the best that p ircumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temp nd liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, perience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keep view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested rom another; that it must pay with a portion of its inde nce for whatever it may accept under that character; ▪y such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of iven equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being repro with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no g rror than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nati ation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, wh ust pride ought to discard.

XIV. In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of nd affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the nd lasting impression I could wish, that they will control the urrent of the passions, or prevent our nation from runnin ourse which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. E may even flatter myself that they may be productive of artial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and ecur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against th hiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pret patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitu our welfare by which they have been dictated.

How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been g y the principles which have been delineated, the public record ther evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the To myself, the assurance of my own conscience is that I have a elieved myself to be guided by them.

, perseverance, and firmness.

siderations which respect the right to hold this conduct, cessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe ling to my understanding of the matter, that right, so ing denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been [mitted by all.

y of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without ore, from the obligation which justice and humanity every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to mainte the relations of peace and amity toward other nations. ucements of interest for observing that conduct will best to your own reflections and experience. With me, a t motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our coune and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress erruption to that degree of strength and consistency cessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of

unes.

hough, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, scious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible cts not to think it probable that I may have committed s. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Alavert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I arry with me the hope that my country will never cease em with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of icated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must the mansions of rest.

ence to the war waged by the Second Coalition against republican ton's Proclamation of Neutrality.

THIS document was signed on September Alexander I, tsar of Russia, Francis I, emperor of Frederick William III, king of Prussia. The signa European sovereigns were subsequently added. the British Prince Regent, declined to sign it, on tional ground that all acts of the Crown required signature of a minister, but he expressed his entir with its principles. The Pope and the Sultan we to accede to the declaration. The Holy Allian with Alexander I, who after the Napoleonic w desired to provide some basis for a general con Europe in the interest of universal peace and morality. The association thus formed came to b considered a conspiracy against popular liberty the reactionary policies followed by the Europe after 1815. As a matter of fact, the Holy A became effective; it was soon replaced by de between the great powers who formed the Europ At the close of the nineteenth century, however the inspiration for the Peace Circular of Nicho resulted in the First Hague Conference of 1899

HOLY ALLIANCE, 1815

In the Name of the Most Holy and Indivisible Their Majesties, the emperor of Austria, the king the emperor of Russia, having, in consequence of th which have marked the course of the last three ye and especially of the blessings which it has pleased dence to shower down upon those states which pla dence and their hope on it alone, acquired the intim of the necessity of settling the steps to be observed

1 Edward Hertslet, The Map of Europe by Treaty, vol. i, pp. 3 1875-1891.

the only means of consolidating human institutions and ren their imperfections. In consequence, their Majesties have on the following articles:

I. Conformably to the words of the Holy Scriptures, whic mand all men to consider each other as brethren, the thr tracting monarchs will remain united by the bonds of a tr indissoluble fraternity; and, considering each other as fellow c men, they will, on all occasions and in all places, lend each ot and assistance; and, regarding themselves toward their subje armies as fathers of families, they will lead them, in the sam of fraternity with which they are animated, to protect r peace, and justice.

II. In consequence, the sole principle of force, whether b the said governments or between their subjects, shall be doing each other reciprocal service, and of testifying by unal good-will the mutual affection with which they ought to be ani to consider themselves all as members of one and the same C nation; the three allied princes looking on themselves as lelegated by Providence to govern three branches of the one amely, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, thus confessing th Christian world, of which they and their people form a part, eality no other sovereign than Him to whom alone power elongs, because in Him alone are found all the treasures cience, and infinite wisdom, that is to say, God, our divine he Word of the Most High, the Word of Life. Their Majesti equently recommend to their people, with the most tender ude, as the sole means of enjoying that peace which arises ood conscience and which alone is durable, to strengthen ther very day more and more in the principles and exercise of the -hich the divine Savior has taught to mankind.