306 BALCH — THE PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL [Maya, 



rulers. " Only let them publish peace by the order of the King ! " 

 Cruce wrote. " Those words will make them drop their arms from 

 their hands." 



Here again we find that history has repeated itself. In 1623 

 fimeric Cruce wanted the King of France to move in favor of uni- 

 versal peace. In 1898 it was the Emperor of Russia that called 

 upon the Powers to send representatives to the Peace Conference 

 that met the next year at The Hague. And while it was almost 

 three centuries before the International Court that Cruce proposed 

 became an actual fact, and two great wars have been fought since 

 the Emperor Nicholas called the first Hague Conference together, 

 yet — owing to the institution ad hoc before 1899 of International 

 Courts of Arbitration to meet certain cases, such as those of the 

 Alabama Claims and the Bering Sea Fur Seal Fisheries, and since 

 1899 by the establishment of the Permanent Hague Tribunal — some 

 wars at least have been avoided. 



The Grand Dessein attributed to Henry of Navarre, but very 

 likely a product of the Due de Sully's imagination, is often cited as 

 the first serious project of international arbitration. Sully's Me- 

 moirs, which give us everything we know about the Grand Dessein, 

 were not published until 1638, or fifteen years after fimeric Cruce 

 had given to the world his plan for the establishment of an Inter- 

 national Court at Venice. But in addition, whether the Grand Des- 

 sein was an actual historic fact or not, that plan, attributed by the 

 Due de Sully to his sovereign, Henry the Fourth, was not drawn 

 so as to settle the diflferences of the European nations by means 

 of arbitration, but to overthrow as the dominating power of Europe 

 the House of Hapsburg by means of a league of the other European 

 states, at the head of which would be the King of France. The 

 basic thought of the Grand Dessein was not peace but armed force : 

 its purpose was well expressed by the lines of Wordsworth in " Rob 



Roy's Grave " : 



" The good old rule 

 Sufficeth them, the simple plan, 

 That they should take who have the power. 

 And they should keep who can." 



The proposal of £meric Cruce for an International Court bore 



good fruit. Gabriel Naude in his " Bibliographia Politica " (1642) 



