]> PREFACE. 



many months elapsed before that Congress could be 

 ■assembled which was to regulate the coiDplicated 

 concerns of the continent, and that the vear closed 

 without a declaration of its final award. Meantime 

 various subordinate dispositions have been made 

 under the influence of the ruling powers, which 

 have afforded an insight into their principles and 

 intentions ; and changes have been efifected in the 

 condition of several countries, which will render 

 the year ISl'i memorable in their annals, provided 

 they prove as durable as they have been unresisted. 

 The annexation of Norway to Sweden, of Belgium 

 to Holland, and of Genoa to Sardinia, in all of these 

 cases without any reference to the wishes of the in- 

 habitants, may be regarded as exemplifications of the 

 submission that will be required from the smaller 

 powers to the determinations of the greater, in 

 settling that balance which has for centuries been 

 the unsolved problem of European politics. In the 

 first of these instances, the spirit of an independent 

 nation broke out in an appeal to arms, the hopeless- 

 ness of which, however, caused it to be renounced 

 \v\\h little bloodshed ; and tlie patriotism of the de- 

 fenders of their country has been rewarded by the 

 grant of a free and equal constitution. 



They who are led by their opinions and wishes to 

 expect a regular progress towards melioration in go- 

 vernments, will probably be much perplexed in their 

 feelings by the singular mixture of advance and re- 

 trogradation which the events of the year have ex- 

 hibited. If, on one hand, they are gratified with 

 the commencement made in some parts, of establish- 

 ing representative constitutions on the basis of ge- 

 neral rights ; on the other, they must be severely 

 mortified by the total failure of the great experi- 

 ment of that kind conducted with apparent success 

 by the Spanish Cortes, which has terminated in a 

 cruel persecution of all the friends of light and 



