owns of the Netherlands, as
they then stood in their respective occupation--a clause highly
favorable to the republic, which had conquered several considerable
places in Brabant and Flanders. The ratifications of the treaty
were exchanged at Munster with great solemnity on the 15th of
May following the signature; the peace was published in that
town and in Osnaburg on the 19th, and in all the different states
of the king of Spain and the United Provinces as soon as the
joyous intelligence could reach such various and widely separated
destinations. Thus after eighty years of unparalleled warfare,
only interrupted by the truce of 1609, during which hostilities
had not ceased in the Indies, the new republic rose from the
horrors of civil war and foreign tyranny to its uncontested rank
as a free and independent state among the most powerful nations
of Europe. No country had ever done more for glory; and the result
of its efforts was the irrevocable guarantee of civil and religious
liberty, the great aim and end of civilization.

The king of France alone had reason to complain of this treaty:
his resentment was strongly pronounced. But the United Provinces
flung back the reproaches of his ambassador on Cardinal Mazarin;
and the anger of the monarch was smothered by the policy of the
minister.

The internal tranquillity of the republic was secured from all
future alarm by the conclusion of the general peace of Westphalia,
definitively signed on the 24th of October, 1648. This treaty was
long considered not only as the fundamental law of the empire,
but as the basis of the political system of Europe. As numbers of
conflicting interests were reconciled, Germanic liberty secured,
and a just equilibrium established between the Catholics and
Protestants, France and Sweden obtained great advantages; and
the various princes of the empire saw their possessions regulated
and secured, at the same time that the powers of the emperor
were strictly defined.

This great epoch in European history naturally marks the conclusion
of another in that of the Netherlands; and this period of general
repose allows a brief consideration of the progress of arts,
sciences, and manners, during the half century just now completed.

The archdukes Albert and Isabella, during the whole course of
their sovereignty, labored to remedy the abuses which had crowded
the administration of justice. The Perpetual Edict, in 1611,
regulated the form of judicial