nt one to the
whole German empire, and also attracted the attention of several
European courts. It was not so much the question, who was or was not to
possess the Duchy of Juliers;--the real question was, which of the two
religious parties in Germany, the Roman Catholic or the Protestant, was
to be strengthened by so important an accession--for which of the two
RELIGIONS this territory was to be lost or won. The question in short
was, whether Austria was to be allowed to persevere in her usurpations,
and to gratify her lust of dominion by another robbery; or whether the
liberties of Germany, and the balance of power, were to be maintained
against her encroachments. The disputed succession of Juliers,
therefore, was matter which interested all who were favourable to
liberty, and hostile to Austria. The Evangelical Union, Holland,
England, and particularly Henry IV. of France, were drawn into the
strife.

This monarch, the flower of whose life had been spent in opposing the
House of Austria and Spain, and by persevering heroism alone had
surmounted the obstacles which this house had thrown between him and the
French throne, had been no idle spectator of the troubles in Germany.
This contest of the Estates with the Emperor was the means of giving and
securing peace to France. The Protestants and the Turks were the two
salutary weights which kept down the Austrian power in the East and
West; but it would rise again in all its terrors, if once it were
allowed to remove this pressure. Henry the Fourth had before his eyes
for half a lifetime, the uninterrupted spectacle of Austrian ambition
and Austrian lust of dominion, which neither adversity nor poverty of
talents, though generally they check all human passions, could
extinguish in a bosom wherein flowed one drop of the blood of Ferdinand
of Arragon. Austrian ambition had destroyed for a century the peace of
Europe, and effected the most violent changes in the heart of its most
considerable states. It had deprived the fields of husbandmen, the
workshops of artisans, to fill the land with enormous armies, and to
cover the commercial sea with hostile fleets. It had imposed upon the
princes of Europe the necessity of fettering the industry of their
subjects by unheard-of imposts; and of wasting in self-defence the best
strength of their states, which was thus lost to the prosperity of their
inhabitants. For Europe there was no peace, for its states no welfare,
for the people'