SUMMARY OF FOREIGN EVENTS. 



FOR the last three years there has not been a single social or political 

 question that has not been agitated not a royal or popular establishment 

 that has not been shaken to its very foundation. We have been apparently 

 on the eve of the greatest events Europe has resounded with the din of 

 arras in fact, every thing has announced an approaching bouleversement 

 which men shuddered at contemplating even in perspective. But the tem- 

 pest has rolled over our heads without bursting, and we breathe again. Still 

 no part of Europe has succeeded in quietly seating itself upon its ancient 

 foundations. The three military monarchs of the north are by this time 

 assembled in Congress in Bohemia. It is pretended that the object of this 

 royal conference is to take into consideration the affairs of Poland, which 

 excite the liveliest solicitude of these monarchs. But this is a mere flimsy 

 diplomatic pretext. The real object of this Congress of Absolutists is the 

 affairs of Germany, of Italy, and of Portugal to cement more firmly than 

 ever their unholy league against the liberties of mankind. But the fame of 

 the victory of the gallant Napier will resound even arnid the mountains of 

 Bohemia, and teach them that they will now have to seek some other ful- 

 crum for their diabolical purposes than the soil of Portugal. Each of these 

 three Powers will bring into the Congress, besides the general interest, in- 

 terests of their own. Russia is interested in Poland ; Prussia, by the affairs 

 of Germany ; Austria, by those of the Italian peninsula, as well as by the 

 growth of liberalism in Germany. If we can credit our last advices from that 

 country, representative government appears to be at its last gasp. Among 

 the enlightened men of Germany there is but one opinion upon the intentions 

 of Prussia and Austria. They all agree that the object of these two powers 

 is to absorb all the minor states and divide the country between them. The 

 proposition presented to the Diet for forming a confederate army, the nor- 

 thern section of which should be commanded by a Prussian, and the 

 southern by an Austrian, is well known ; it was withdrawn as premature, 

 arid the projectors deemed it wiser to render unpopular all the petty princes 

 among their subjects, in order to make at a later period the accomplishment 

 of their views more easy. It was for this that they forced the princes of the 

 Confederation to keep up a large military force in order to overwhelm the 

 people with taxation, and to have a reserve of disciplined soldiers in the 

 event of a war. They perceived that those unfortunate constitutions, granted 

 in the piping times of 1815, and the assemblies that resulted from them, 

 were advocating reduction and economy were going to attach the popula- 

 tion to the different dynasties in short, to create an independent Germany. 

 To obviate this they resolved to destroy these constitutions, and by a mas- 

 terly stroke of policy, they resolved to make the petty princes themselves the 

 instruments of their destruction through their unpopularity. The plan has 

 succeeded these princes are detested as the enemies of liberty hated as 

 obstacles to that unity, which, by the Germans, is looked upon, next to 

 liberty, as the summum bonum, since it would give them strength, and 

 gratify at least the national vanity. Thus Prussia at this moment is labour- 

 ing to point out the advantages of unity, and to prove to Germany how 

 much happier the Prussian administration would render her than that of the 

 petty sovereigns, incapable of defending either the independence or the insti- 

 tutions of the country. On this last point the smaller states have abundant 

 proofs. By her excellent administration, by the extension of her custom- 

 house system, Prussia recommends herself to the whole independent popula- 

 tion of Germany. But her zeal is carried so far, that it has aroused the 



