The leading rule by which it has ever since then been attempted to maintain the balance of power, may be stated to be the opposing of every new arrangement which threatens either materially to augment the strength of one of the greater powers,• or to diminish that of another. Thus, first Austria, and afterwards France, have been the great objects of the jealousy and vigilance of the other states of Europe. While the power of the Germanic Empire was united in the person of Charles V. to the kingdom of Spain, that prince was naturally regarded as formidable both by France and England. If he could have effected a permanent alliance with either of these powers, or could have even in duced one of them to stand aside and acquiesce, there can be little doubt that he would have taken that occasion to attempt to crush the other. The vast possessions of Philip II. appeared to call for the same watchfulness and opposition, in regard to his projects, from all other states that valued their independence. In later times, the ambition of Louis XIV. of France, and the scheme concerted under his management to unite in one family the crowns of France and Spain, drew upon him, in like manner, the general hostility of Europe. There can be no doubt that, if the designs of this king had not been thus resisted, France would have become, a century earlier than it did, the mistress of the continent, and the independence of all other nations would, for a time at least, have been extinguished. The liberties of England, as founded upon the Revolution of 1688, could, in such circumstances, certainly not have been maintained.
It is nothing to the purpose to argue that the maintenance of the balance of has often involved the nations of in contests with each other, whit if they had disregarded thai principle, would not have taken place ; at least, not at the time. It may be better that all nations should be subject to one, than that each should preserve its independence ; but that is not the question here : if nations will be sovereign and independent, they must fight for their sovereignty, as men must do for any other possession, when it is attacked.
But some persons appear to think that we in Great Britain have nothing to do with the maintenance of the so-called balance of power in Europe, because we live not on the continent, but in an island by ourselves. If the whole continent were reduced under subjection to a single despot, we certainly should not long re mam independent. The protection which we now possess from the sea with which we are surrounded would, in the case supposed, certainly become insufficient.
The maintenance of the principle of the balance of power, however, although it has no doubt given occasion to some wars, has probably prevented more. Its general recognition has, to a certain ex tent, united all the states of Europe into one great confederacy, and habituated each of the leading powers to the expecta tion of a most formidable resistance in ease of its making any attempt to encroach upon its neighbours. It is no sufficient objection to say that such attempts have been actually made. They would have been made much oftener had there been no such general understanding as we have spoken of. It must have operated as a great discouragement and cheek to the schemes of ambitious potentates to know that, from the first consolidation of the modern European system down to the partition of Poland in 1772—a period, we may say, of three centuries—not the smallest independent state had suffered extinction, or had been even very seri ously curtailed of power or territory, notwithstanding all the wars for the purpose of conquest and aggrandizement that had been waged during that long interval.