ruinous effects, nor in the diplomatic intrigues which accompanied their progress, down to the end of the seventeenth century. We had no representative at the Congress of Westphalia in 1648, which closed the thirty-years' war,-nor any hand in the Peace of the Pyrenees, which laid the ground for half a century of future wars, to be terminated by the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, which was the first great European settlement in which this country took part, and, as it happened, a prominent part.

Our first initiation into the mysteries of Statecraft was occasioned through foreign influences and interests, imported with the personel of the sovereignty, after the expulsion of the Stuarts. But in the wars and intrigues which followed, it was not so much the feelings and policy of the nation as against nation, which were the motive influence, as the rivalry of parties, which, during the struggle between legitimacy and constitutional sovereignty, combined the great state question of resisting French ambition, with intrigues and conflicts between Whigs and Tories. The same state of things continued under the first two kings of the House of Hanover; with the inevitable consequence of weak and divided counsels, instead of a strong national policy founded upon a definite purpose.

Passing over the mad and wicked struggle which we waged for twenty years against the French nation in the interests of Divine Right, and the reactionary movement of a later period for forcing liberty and liberal institutions upon nations, whether they were disposed for them or not, under the

auspices of a late popular Minister, our diplomatic efforts of late years have been chiefly guided by commercial objects, or by doctrines of expediency, wholly apart from the great game of international intrigue, and territorial annexation in which the ambition of Continental Sovereigns is still engaged as deeply and as zealously as ever.

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It may be well understood, therefore, that whilst every Continental state there has existed for centuries a school of diplomacy, with defined and studied purpose, and an unvarying stream of tradition to guide each successive Minister, in England the business of diplomacy has received less consideration, and has been carried on by Minister after Minister, following in rapid succession (there have been sixteen changes of the head of the Foreign Office since 1830), upon uncertain principles, regulated too often by caprice, or the chances of the day, or the influences of party; the result being habitual uncertainty and inconsistency. Who can doubt that, but for the unfortunate circumstance of an Aberdeen, "ce bon Aberdeen," being at the head of affairs in 1852-3, the Czar of Russia would never have dared to make his odious proposals for plundering the estates of the "sick man" at Constantinople, as transmitted in the despatches of Sir Hamilton Seymour, and which his Imperial Majesty requested might be kept secret between the two governments?" And who will doubt that if Lord Aberdeen had not consented to be particeps criminis in this felonious transaction, and to hide the nefarious secret from Parliament and the country,

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the disastrous Crimean War, and the unworthy Treaty which followed upon it, need neither have taken place? The conduct of Lord Aberdeen in this scandalous transaction can only be attributed to gross turpitude, or a lamentable weakness of judgment, combined with a want of capacity to comprehend the immense wickedness which habitually marks the operations of state intrigue, and in which the Court of Petersburg was proficient.

Another noteworthy instance in which the personel of the Minister, and his supposed predilections for one or other of the leading Continental States, were suffered to have a direct influence upon measures of state policy, was that of Lord Palmerston, when, in his excess of zeal for the Second Empire of 1852, and of admiration of its representative, he wanted to extend the scope of our Extradition Treaty with France to include the surrender of political offenders. But the indignant voice of Parliament, and of the nation at large, prevented the accomplishment of this monstrous project, and-drove the Minister from office.

Martens, in his 'Guide Diplomatique,' draws some marked distinctions between the principles of diplomacy, which are "based upon truth and natural right,” and, “therefore, immutable,” and the random practice of diplomacy in which the conduct of negociations, "being more or less affected by accidental and special conditions and considerations of expediency," is" consequently variable." He adds that "the science of diplomacy, notwithstanding its importance, has not always been sufficiently culti

vated. If some political agents have devoted themselves to the studies which it demands, others have entered upon the career without previous knowledge, or have restricted themselves to glancing very superficially at the works which treat of the law of nations, and the history of the principal treaties.” These remarks, we find, are especially applicable to the diplomatic chiefs and agents of our own country, who, besides a want of the peculiar idiosyncrasy of shrewdness, and cunning which should fit them for the arena of international negociations, are necessarily deficient in these stores of experience and that ready resource, which mark their more accomplished opponents.

Within our own time we have had some noteworthy examples of the manner in which the destinies of the country, in its foreign relations, have been confided to the hands of men who have had little or no training to the business. The Earl of Malmsbury, in the course of the numerous discussions which have taken place on the subject of the Washington Treaty, made some pungent remarks upon the evil consequences which had of late years too frequently attended the performances of amateur, or insufficiently experienced diplomatists. By a strange coincidence, it happens that his lordship, in his own career, has afforded a striking illustration of the fact, under circumstances, which, as they are hardly known beyond the pages of the Blue Book in which they are recorded (Papers relating the Affairs of Denmark'), we may be permitted to repeat here.

It appears that, in 1852, Lord Malmsbury having,

in consequence of a change of Government, been called, without any previous experience of official duty, to the direction of the Foreign Office, found there, amongst other matters which required immediate attention, the Treaty of London for the settlement of the Danish Succession. This treaty had been negotiated during a considerable period, by Lord Palmerston and Lord Granville; and Lord Malmsbury, their successor, could hardly be expected to know much of the ins and outs of the matter. He accordingly appears to have, in a confiding moment, applied to Baron Brunnow, the Russian Minister —but why to him, of all people in the world, we are at a loss to imagine-for some information as to the previous negotiations on the subject. To this request the obliging representative, and zealous servant of the Russian Czar acceded, and, in a letter dated "Ashburnham House, 19th April, 1862" (only three weeks before the execution of the Treaty), we find him writing as follows :-"My dear Lord Malmsbury, I hasten to fulfil my promise of sending you the inclosures, being, first, a copy of the Treaty, with certain modifications which had been indicated by Count Nesselrode, on behalf of the Russian Government; and secondly, 'a résumé, etc.,' in which I have given an account of the engagements made by our Cabinets, with reference to the deliberations now going forward in London."

It so happened, however, that this résumé made a particularly slight reference to a certain "Protocol of Warsaw," a document of ill repute, which had been secretly signed by Russia and Denmark only, at the