imilar application, he was answered that the affairs
of the dissidents must be first settled.

The Austrian pretensions were even more elaborately drawn up than those
of Russia. In the first place, the district of Zips, the first sacrifice
to Austrian rapacity, came under consideration. Sigismund, who came to
the Hungarian throne in 1387, mortgaged this district to Wladislas II
(Jagello), King of Poland, in 1412, for a stipulated sum of money. It is
commonly called the "Thirteen Towns of Zips," but the district contains
sixteen. No reclamation of it had been made till the present time; it
had then been in the undisputed possession of Poland nearly three
hundred sixty years. The chief demur which the Austrians now made to the
mortgage was that the King of Hungary was restricted by the
constitution, as expressed in the coronation-oath, from alienating any
portion of the kingdom. But even this plea, weak as it is under such
circumstances, is not available; since it is proved that this article
was never made a part of the coronation-oath until the accession of
Ferdinand I in 1527.

The Austrian minister endeavored also to establish the right of his
mistress to Galicia and Podolia, as Queen of Hungary, and the duchies of
Oswiecim and Zator, as Queen of Bohemia. "What lastly establishes
indisputably the ancient claim of Hungary to the provinces in question
is that in several seals and documents of the ancient kings of Hungary
preserved in our archives, the titles and arms of Galicia are always
used." After exhausting the records, and stating that the crown of
Hungary has never in any way renounced its rights and pretensions, the
author modestly winds up his arguments in the following way:
"Consequently, after such a long delay, the house of Austria is well
authorized in establishing and reclaiming the lawful rights and
pretensions of her crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, and to obtain
satisfaction by the means which she now employs; in the use of which she
has exhibited the greatest moderation possible, by confining herself to
a very moderate equivalent for her real pretensions to the best
provinces of Poland, such as Podolia, etc."

Frederick argues his cause on the general principles of civil law.
"Since then," he says, "the crown of Poland cannot prove express
cessions, which are the only good titles between sovereigns to confer a
legitimate possession of disputed provinces, it will perhaps have
recourse to prescription an