people—against the encroachments of liberal ideas. Congresses were held at Aix-la-Chapelle, Troppau, and Laybach, for the purpose of maturing a programme to that end. The league was joined by the King of France; but England, whose Prince Regent had originally given it his informal adhesion, began to grow hostile.
Her own government, with its free and parliamentary institutions, was founded on a revolution; and the allies, in the circular issued at Troppau, had associated "revolt and crime," and had declared that the European powers "had an undoubted right to take a hostile attitude in regard to those states in which the overthrow of the government might operate as an example." In a circular issued at Laybach they denounced "as equally null, and disallowed by the public law of Europe, any pretended reform effected by revolt and open force." In October, 1822, they held a congress at Verona for the purpose of concerting measures against the revolutionary government in Spain; and in yet another circular announced their determination "to repel the maxim of rebellion, in whatever place and under whatever form it might show itself." Their ultimate object was more explicitly stated in a secret treaty in which they engaged mutually "to put an end to the system of representative governments" in Europe, and to adopt measures to destroy "the liberty of the press." Popular movements were forcibly suppressed in Piedmont and Naples; and in April, 1823, France, acting for the allies, invaded Spain for the purpose of restoring the absolute monarch Ferdinand VII. Before the close of the summer such progress had been made in this direction that notice was given to the British government of the intention of the allies to call a congress with a view to the termination of the revolutionary governments in Spanish America.
At this time Lord Castlereagh, who had always been favorably disposed towards the alliance, had been succeeded in the conduct of the foreign affairs of England by George Canning, who reflected the popular sentiment as to the policy of the allied powers. The independence of the Spanish-American governments, which had now been acknowledged by the United States, had not as yet been recognized by Great Britain. But English merchants, like those of the United States, had developed a large trade with the Spanish-American countries—a trade which the restoration of those regions to a colonial condition would, under the commercial system then in vogue, have cut off and destroyed.
In view of this common interest, Canning, towards the close of 1823, began to sound Richard Rush, the American minister at London, as to the possibility of a joint declaration by the two governments against the intervention of the allies in Spanish America. Canning once boasted that he had called into being the New World to redress the balance of the Old. The meaning of this boast can be understood only in the light of his proposals. In a "private and confidential" note to Rush, of August 23, 1823, he declared: "1. We conceive the recovery of the colonies of Spain to be hopeless. 2. We conceive the question of the recognition of them, as independent states, to be one of time and circumstances. 3. We are, however, by no means disposed to throw any impediment in the way of an arrangement between them and the mother country by amicable negotiation. 4. We aim not at the possession of any portion of them ourselves. 5. We could not see any portion of them transferred to any other power with indifference."
If these opinions and feelings were shared by the United States, Canning thought the two governments should declare them in the face of the world, as the best means of defeating the project, if any European power should cherish it, of subjugating the colonies in the name of Spain, or of acquiring any part of them itself by cession or by conquest. He therefore desired Rush to act upon his proposals at once, if he possessed the power to do so. It was said of Richard Rush by an eminent Senator that, in the course of an unusually long and important diplomatic career, he "never said a word that was improper, nor betrayed a thought that might peril his country's fortunes." On the present occasion he acted with his usual good judgment. His powers did not embrace the making of such a declaration as Canning desired; but, while he expressed the opinion that Canning's sentiments, except as to in-
